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MADAME   ADAM 


(1915) 


MADAME    ADAM 

(JULIETTE   LAMBER) 
LA   GRANDE   FRANC A1SE 

FROM    LOUIS   PHILIPPE    UNTIL    1917 


BY 

WINIFRED    STEPHENS 

AUTHOR    OF    "FROM    THE    CRUSADES    TV     1TTe"fRENCH    REVOLUTION, 

"FRENCH    NOVELISTS   OF   TO-DAY,"    "MARGARET   OF    FRANCE," 

ETC.,    ETC. 


WITH    EIGHT  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW    YORK 
E.    P.    DUTTON    &    COMPANY 


Printed    in    Great    Britain    by 

Richard  Clay  &  Sons,   Limited, 

brunswick  st.,  stamford  st.,  s.e.  1, 

and  bungay,  suffolk. 


PREFACE 

La  Grande  Francaise  x 

"  Professor  of  Energy,"  a  term  first  applied  to 
Napoleon  I,  is  a  title  which  has  been  bestowed  on  more  than 
one  living  Frenchman.  None  has  better  claim  to  it  than 
Mme.  Adam,  La  Grande  Francaise,  as  she  has  been  happily 
called,  the  story  of  whose  life,  which  is  now  running  into  its 
eighty-first  year,  is  told  in  the  following  pages. 

To  write  Mme.  Adam's  biography  is  also  to  write  one  of 
the  most  momentous  chapters  of  French  history.  For  this 
remarkable  woman  has  lived  through  the  Revolution  of 
1848,  the  coup  d'etat  of  1851,  the  agony  of  the  siege  of  Paris, 
the  civil  war  of  the  Commune,  and  two  invasions  of  her 
beloved  patrie. 

As  the  mistress  of  a  leading  political  salon,  as  the  founder 
and  editor  for  twenty  years  of  an  influential  fortnightly 
magazine,  La  Nouvelle  Revue,  as  for  many  years  the  intimate 
friend  of  Gambetta,  of  Thiers,  of  other  French  ministers, 
of  the  representatives  of  foreign  powers  and  of  such  eminent 
French  writers  as  George  Sand,  Flaubert,  Victor  Hugo, 
Alphonse  Daudet,  Pierre  Loti,  Paul  Bourget  and  Maurice 
Barres,  she  has  not  only  kept  her  finger  on  the  pulse  of 
her  great  nation,  but  she  has  to  some  extent  modulated  its 
heart-beats. 

The  key  to  Mme.  Adam's  temperament  and  to  all  the 
varied  phases  of  her  career  is  her  passionate  belief  in  self- 
government,  in  that  cause  of  national  independence  for 
which  the  powers  of  L' Entente  are  now  engaging  in  this 
world-embracing  conflict.  We  may  call  it  a  belief,  but 
originally  in  Mme.  Adam's  case  it  was  an  instinct  born  in 
her  and  inherited  from  her  father,  one  of  the  most  ardent 
of  revolutionaries.  Mme.  Adam  is  a  revoltee  to  the  core. 
Toujours  hors  des  rangs,  Gambetta  said  of  her.  In  numer- 
ous incidents  of  her  childhood  her  rebelliousness  revealed 

1  "  Celui   qui   Va   baptisee  '  la   Grande   Francaise x  a  bien  dit." — Leon 
Daudet,  V  Entre-Deux-Guerres,  231  (1915). 


vi  PREFACE 

itself.  The  growth  of  her  reasoning  powers,  however,  led 
her  to  submit  to  discipline,  to  embrace  with  fervour — she 
can  never  do  anything  by  halves — the  republican  creed, 
and  to  become  the  irreconcilable  adversary  of  the  Second 
Empire.  Then  the  national  defeat  of  1871,  acting  upon 
what  she  has  described  as  her  combativite  r entree  (her  sup- 
pressed combativeness),  turned  her  passion  for  self-govern- 
ment into  an  ardent  advocacy  of  the  principle  of  nationality, 
into  a  vehement  protest  against  everything  which  could 
in  even  the  remotest  manner  be  suspected  of  undermining 
that  principle. 

Consequently  we  shall  find  Mme.  Adam  loudly  lifting  up 
her  voice,  vigorously  wielding  her  pen  most  frequently 
against  Prussian  aggressiveness,  but  also  against  imperial- 
istic ideas,  no  matter  in  what  shape  or  form,  no  matter  in 
what  part  of  the  world  she  can  detect  them.  We  shall  find 
her  opposing  alike  the  French  tendency  to  colonial  expan- 
sion and  the  Austrian  Drang  nach  Osten,  Mr.  Gladstone's 
later  policy  in  Egypt  and  the  Conservative  coercion  of 
Ireland,  the  Magyar  domination  over  the  Slav  peoples  and 
our  war  with  the  Boer  Republic  in  South  Africa.  We 
shall  find  her  also  ever  glorifying  the  army  and  navy  as 
the  most  effective  guarantee  of  national  independence. 

Nationalism  is  Mme.  Adam's  creed,  patriotism  her  reli- 
gion. French  Nationalists,  like  Leon  Daudet,  regard  her 
as  having  been  the  strong  tower  of  the  French  idea  (la 
forteresse  de  Videe  francai.se)  throughout  the  forty-four  years 
separating  the  war  of  1914  from  the  war  of  1870.  If  in 
later  years  Mme.  Adam  has  renounced  her  father's  agnos- 
ticism and  returned  to  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  it  is 
primarily  because  she  considers  that  only  by  submitting  to 
the  Roman  obedience  can  she  best  continue  the  traditions 
of  her  country. 

I  am  very  fortunate,  for  Mme.  Adam  has  throughout 
taken  a  deep  interest  in  this  biography.  We  have  dis- 
cussed it  together  at  length.  Despite  her  multifarious  war 
activities  she  has  found  time  to  write  me  some  forty  letters 
in  response  to  my  questions.  She  has  also  introduced  me 
to  her  friend  and  collaborator  in  La  Nouvelle  Revue,  Mme. 
Jeanne  Krompholtz,  who  has  kindly  furnished  me  with 
valuable  information. 

For  the  greater  part  of  Mme.  Adam's  life,  however,  from 
her  birth  in  1836  down  to  1880,  my  main  authority  has  been 


PREFACE  vii 

her  seven  volumes  of  Souvenirs.  These  living  documents, 
written,  many  of  them,  under  the  immediate  impression 
of  the  events  they  record,  I  have  carefully  compared  with 
contemporary  and  more  recent  writings,  indicated  by  foot- 
notes throughout  these  pages.  For  the  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury and  more  which  has  elapsed  since  the  close  of  Mme. 
Adam's  Souvenirs  I  have  consulted  her  numerous  other 
autobiographical  works,  her  contributions  to  La  Nouvelle 
Revue  and  to  other  periodical  literature,  and  also  the 
frequent  references  to  her  personally,  and  to  her  books, 
which  have  appeared  from  time  to  time  in  the  French  press 
and  elsewhere. 

I  have  to  thank  Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  who  frequently  visited 
Mme.  Adam  at  her  salon's  most  brilliant  moment,  in  the 
seventies,  for  generously  bringing  forth  from  the  rich 
treasure-house  of  his  remembrance  and  for  permitting  me 
to  incorporate  in  this  book  valuable  recollections  which 
enhance,  confirm  and  complement  impressions  derived 
from  other  sources. 

Had  he  lived  to  see  this  work  completed  I  should  have 
gladly  taken  this  opportunity  to  thank  another  of  Mme. 
Adam's  acquaintances  and  admirers,  M.  Elie  Mercadier, 
Director  in  London  of  L'Agence  Havas.  For  to  his  lively 
talk  about  La  Grande  Francaise  and  her  circle  I  am  indebted 
for  many  a  striking  trait  and  useful  suggestion. 

Winifred  Stephens. 

London,  1917. 


CONTENTS 


i. 

ii. 

in. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 


PREFACE     

BIRTH,    PARENTAGE    AND    INFANCY.       1836-1839 

CHILDHOOD.       1839-1848    .... 

HER  FIRST    REVOLUTION  (FROM   A   SCHOOLGIRL'S   POINT 
OF   VIEW).       1848 

FIRST   MARRIAGE  AND   EARLY  YEARS   IN  PARIS.     1849- 

1858 

HER   FIRST   BOOK.      1858     . 

SALON  LIFE  DURING  THE  SECOND  EMPIRE.     1858-1863 

AMONG   THE    UTOPIANS.       1858-1864    . 

HER   PRE-WAR   SALON.      1864-1870      . 

HER    FRIENDSHIP    WITH    GEORGE    SAND.       1858-1870 

THE     WAR     AND     PREPARATIONS     FOR     THE     SIEGE     OF 
PARIS.       1870 


the  siege  of  paris.     1870-1871 
the  commune.     1871 
gambetta's  egeria.    1871-1878 

LA    REVANCHE.       1870-1880 

disillusionment.     1878-1880  . 
la  novvelle  revue.     1879-1899 
views  on  foreign  politics 
the  abbess  of  gif.    1880-1917 

INDEX  .... 


V 
1 

10 

19 

37 
51 
62 
80 
97 
120 

133 
144 
158 
170 
188 
204 
212 
222 
236 
247 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

To  face  page 
PORTRAIT   OF   MADAME   ADAM   IN    1915     .  .  .  Frontispiece 

JULIETTE   LAMBER.      {From  a  portrait  by  Leopold  Flameng,  1860)        .  71 

the  villa  bruyeres,  madame  adam's  riviera  home  .         .  117 

portrait  op  madame  adam  in  1879 185 

the  device  of  la  croisade  des  femmes  francises       .         .  193 

portrait  of  madame  adam  in  1885 209 

ruins  of  the   abbey  of   gif    in   the   park   of   madame 

adam's  present  home .  237 

the  castle  of  vavey 245 


ERRATA 

Page  9,  note  l,  for  Essay  on  the,  Spirit  of  Comedy  read  Essay  on 
Comedy,  and  the  uses  of  the  Comic  Spirit. 
Page  63,  1.  25,  for  Memoirs  read  Memoires. 
Page  99,  1.  10,  for  Fagwet  read  Faguet. 
Page  194,  1.  24,, for  parties  read  parts. 
Page  236,  Chapter  motto,  for  heureux  on  read  heureux  oil. 
Page  239,  1.  8,  for  goutte  read  gouter. 
Page  240,  1.  6  from  bottom,  for  Ricard  read  Aicard. 


MADAME    ADAM 


CHAPTER  I 

BIRTH,  PARENTAGE  AND  INFANCY 

1836—1839 

" Demotion,   V ebullition   sont   en   -permanence  dans  nos  ames" — Mme. 
Adam,  Souvenirs. 

In  the  opening  pages  of  her  Recollections  Mme.  Adam 
has  told,  with  more  vivid  detail  than  is  unhappily  here 
possible,  the  story  of  two  generations  of  her  ancestors. 
Her  own  career  has  not  lacked  romance ;  but  many  of  its 
most  thrilling  incidents  pale  beside  the  experiences  of  her 
forbears.  Tracing  them  back  to  the  Napoleonic  Wars,  she 
presents  us  with  a  lively  picture  of  domestic  history,  which 
is  as  far  from  being  commonplace  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine. 
For  it  embraces  moving  scenes  of  rapturous  love  affairs, 
extraordinary  marriages,  a  startling  infidelity,  quarrels 
about  dowries,  and  the  story  of  a  son  who  had  a  rare  pre- 
cocious experience.  At  the  age  of  nine,  he  found  himself 
already  disinherited  and  sent  forth  in  the  world,  cast  upon 
the  mercy  of  the  family  milkman,  with  whom  he  took 
refuge.  This  juvenile  outcast  was  Mme.  Adam's  maternal 
grandfather,  of  whom,  under  the  name  of  Dr.  Seron,  we 
shall  hear  much  more  anon.  Only  by  unwavering  per- 
sistence, and  stern  resolution  did  this  unhappy  boy  escape 
from  his  benefactor's  vocation.  Tramping  to  Paris,  boots 
in  hand,  to  save  shoe-leather,  he  educated  himself  into  the 
medical  profession  and  ultimately  married  Mme.  Adam's 
grandmother,  Pelagie  Raincourt.  Pelagie  also  was  a 
highly  romantic  person,  no  less  remarkable  than  her  hus- 
band. For  on  her  wedding  morning,  as  the  result  of  a  family 
broil,  by  no  means  rare  among  Mme.  Adam's  forbears,  she 
escaped  in  a  pet  from  her  mother's  house,  and  was  found 
sitting   by  the    roadside,   clad   only   in    a    nightcap   and 

B 


2  MADAME   ADAM 

dressing-gown,  by  her  bridegroom,  who  had  pursued  her 
on  horseback.  Swinging  her  into  the  saddle,  in  order  to 
avoid  further  escapades,  he  carried  her  off  to  the  church 
and  there  married  her  out  of  hand.  Her  sole  bridal  adorn- 
ment was  a  white  carnation,  which  a  woman  of  the  people 
pinned  into  her  cap. 

Juliette  in  later  years  was  shown  the  cap  and  the  carna- 
tion to  illustrate  the  story,  which  she  heard  from  the  run- 
away's own  lips. 

Mme.  Seron  continued  all  her  life  addicted  to  romance. 
When  it  became  a  question  of  marrying  her  daughter, 
Olympe,  Mme.  Adam's  mother,  Mme.  Seron,  a  catholic, 
chose  a  son-in-law  who  was  an  agnostic,  because  she  was 
attracted  by  his  appearance  and  his  history.  Jean  Louis 
Lambert,  Mme.  Adam's  father,  had  for  the  sake  of  his 
opinions  sacrificed  brilliant  ecclesiastical  prospects,  and 
from  the  prospective  secretary  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Beauvais  had  become  an  usher  in  the  boys'  school  opposite 
Mme.  Seron' s  house.  This  heroic  youth  was  taken  by 
Mme.  Adam's  grandmother,  educated  as  a  doctor,  and 
married  to  the  reluctantly  quiescent  Olympe,  who  from  that 
time  forward  adopted  that  attitude  of  injured  passivity 
which  was  expressed  by  her  favourite  phrase  "  where  you 
have  tethered  the  goat  there  it  will  graze." 

All  this  happened  in  Picardy,  a  province  where  people 
lived  well  and  washed  sparingly.  The  very  name  of 
Mme.  Adam's  birthplace,  Verberie,  with  its  suggestion  of 
oyster  patties  and  sauterne,  made  Robert  Louis  Stevenson's 
mouth  water,  as  he  paddled  towards  it  in  his  canoe. 
Juliette  remembers  how  on  Fridays  at  ten  in  the  morning 
the  oyster  cart  from  Boulogne  would  arrive,  bringing 
twelve  dozen  oysters  for  her  family,  how  they  would  all 
sit  round  the  table,  the  oyster  barrel  in  the  centre,  and  how 
each  with  his  or  her  knife  would  open  his  or  her  oysters. 
Juliette's  grandfather  and  father  would  consume  four 
dozen  each,  her  grandmother  and  mother  two  dozen  each, 
while  sometimes  there  would  be  a  friend  who  would  ab- 
stract as  many  as  possible  from  his  hosts'  respective  shares. 
Wine  flowed  freely  at  these  feasts.  Dr.  Seron  was  a  twelve- 
bottle  man.  But  fortunately  his  beverage  was  only  light 
Macon;  and  this,  happily  for  his  patients,  was  not  con- 
sumed until  he  had  performed  his  operations  at  the 
hospital.     Operations  !     One  trembles  at  the  very  word 


BIRTH,  PARENTAGE  AND  INFANCY  3 

when  associated  with  Dr.  Seron.  For,  according  to  his 
granddaughter,  that  country  surgeon  was  a  most  diligent 
cultivator  of  microbes.  Ablutions,  as  we  have  said,  were 
rare  in  Picard  households.  A  bath  was  unheard  of.  Dr. 
Seron  held  that  the  face  should  be  washed  as  little  as 
possible  for  fear  of  bringing  out  a  rash.  Soap  was  only 
used  on  Sundays.  The  windows,  of  course,  were  kept 
tightly  shut.  Physical  exercise  was  carefully  avoided. 
The  women  of  Mme.  Adam's  family,  like  old-fashioned 
Frenchwomen  down  to  the  present  day,  seldom  went 
beyond  their  own  house  and  garden,  declining  even  the 
attractions  of  the  provincial  theatre,  for  they  agreed  with 
Mme.  de  Sevigne  that  une  grande  dame  ne  doit  pas  remaer 
les  os  (a  true  lady  should  not  move  about  her  bones). 

Nevertheless,  though  their  bodies  were  cribbed,  cabined 
and  confined,  these  Frenchwomen's  minds  moved  in  the 
great  world  of  romance,  their  fancies  glowed  with  all  the 
fervent  imaginings  of  that  effervescent  age.  Mme.  Adam's 
grandmother  lived,   moved   and    had    her    being    in    the 

Human  Comedy  "  of  Balzac.  Turning  over  the  pages  of 
his  ninety-seven  novels,  or  sitting  over  her  embroidery 
frame,  she  lived  the  lives  of  his  five  thousand  characters. 
Her  unfortunate  choice  of  a  husband  for  her  grand- 
daughter, Juliette,  was  largely  dictated  by  the  suitor's 
resemblance  to  one  of  her  favourite  novelist's  heroes. 

Mme.  Adam,  as  we  have  said,  was  born  at  the  little 
Picard  town  of  Verberie,  a  famous  place  in  mediaeval  times, 
the  residence  of  Frankish  kings,  whither  in  the  ninth  cen- 
tury had  come  Ethelbald,  King  of  Wessex,  to  wed  his 
thirteen-year-old  bride,  Charles  the  Bald's  daughter,  Judith. 
Verberie  in  the  last  century  was  a  favourite  place  of  call 
for  tourists,  who  in  pre-motor-car  days  used  to  drive 
leisurely  from  Senlis  to  Compiegne.  Our  English  poetess, 
Mary  Robinson  (Mme.  Duclaux),1  tells  how  from  the  steep 
brow  of  a  down,  known  as  "  la  Montagne  de  Verberie," 
she  saw  through  "  the  poplar  screens  of  the  precipitous 
hill-side,  a  lovely  blue  expanse  of  country  with  the  Oise 
lying  across  it  like  a  scimitar  of  silver  "  ;  how  her  carriage 
dashed  down  the  hill  "  and  clattered  along  the  sleepy, 
pebbly  .  .  .  street,  past  the  inn,  full  of  blouses  and 
billiards." 

1  Fields  of  France,  163. 


4  MADAME   ADAM 

It  was  in  that  very  inn,  "  Les  Trois  Monarques,"  at 
Verberie  that  Mme.  Adam  was  born,  at  half-past  five  on  the 
4th  of  October,  1836. 

Was  it  a  glimpse  into  their  daughter's  future  that  made 
her  parents  name  her  "  Juliette  "  after  that  most  seductive 
of  all  the  queens  of  French  salons,  Mme.  Recamier  ? 

No  gold  or  even  silver  spoon  was  in  our  Juliette's  mouth 
when  she  made  her  first  appearance  on  this  world's  stage. 
At  the  time  of  her  birth,  her  parents'  fortunes  had  reached 
a  low  ebb.  Dr.  Lambert  had  been  in  practice  with  his  great- 
uncle  in  a  village  not  far  from  Verberie,  and  thither  to  his 
uncle's  house  he  had  brought  home  his  girl  wife.  For  the 
first  years  of  their  marriage  everything  had  gone  well  with 
the  young  couple.  Then  had  come  a  deluge  of  misfortunes. 
Their  first  baby,  a  boy,  died  in  convulsions.  Then  the 
uncle  died,  and  his  estate  was  divided  among  numerous 
legatees.  Finally,  a  fire  broke  out  which  nearly  consumed 
the  whole  village,  and,  despite  Mme.  Lambert's  heroic  efforts, 
burned  her  husband's  house  to  the  ground. 

Thus  were  Juliette's  parents  driven  to  seek  harbourage 
in  the  inn  at  Verberie,  where  Juliette  was  born. 

Very  shortly  after  this  event,  her  father,  one  of  the  most 
unpractical  but  at  the  same  time  most  attractive  of  scien- 
tists, was  fascinated  by  the  report  of  some  marvellous 
scientific  experiments,  which  were  being  made  in  the  neigh- 
bouring town  of  Compiegne,  by  a  well-known  chemist,  a 
Dr.  Bernhardt.  Leaving  his  wife  and  daughter  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  mine  host  of  "  The  Three  Monarchs," 
Dr.  Lambert  went  off  to  join  his  confrere.  This  Dr.  Bern- 
hardt came  to  be  regarded  by  Juliette's  family  as  a  veritable 
German  Mephistopheles ;  for  the  only  result  of  his  experi- 
ments was  the  consumption  of  Mme.  Lambert's  dowry. 

During  her  husband's  scientific  adventures  Mme.  Lambert 
and  her  baby  girl  in  the  Verberie  inn  were  suffering  serious 
privations.  And  they  might  have  come  near  starvation 
had  it  not  been  for  the  assistance  they  received  from 
Mme.  Lambert's  parents.  But  this  timely  aid  could  only 
be  given  surreptitiously;  for  Juliette  had  had  the  misfor- 
tune to  be  born,  not  into  poverty  merely,  but  into  one  of 
the  numerous  family  feuds  which  were  to  chequer  all  her 
childhood.  Between  her  parents  and  her  grandparents  at 
the  time  of  the  first  baby's  death  there  had  arisen  a  mis- 
understanding.    For  some  time  there  had  been  no  com- 


BIRTH,  PARENTAGE  AND  INFANCY  5 

munication  between  the  Lamberts  at  Verberie  and  the 
Serons,  who  lived  not  far  away  at  Chauny,  then  a  flourish- 
ing manufacturing  town,  now  converted  by  German  van- 
dalism into  a  heap  of  ruins.  It  was  only  by  the  curtest 
of  notes  that  Dr.  Lambert  had  announced  to  Dr.  and  Mme. 
Seron  their  granddaughter's  advent.  Had  it  not  been  for 
the  report,  brought  by  one  of  Dr.  Seron' s  patients,  a 
friendly  commercial  traveller,  Juliette's  grandmother  would 
never  have  known  of  the  sorry  plight  to  which  her  son- 
in-law's  scientific  vagaries  had  reduced  his  wife  and  child. 

On  hearing  the  commercial  traveller's  news,  Mme.  Seron, 
with  characteristic  impetuousness,  flew  into  a  passion  and 
declared  that  she  would  set  off  at  once  for  Verberie  to 
rescue  her  granddaughter  from  the  parents  who  were 
obviously  incapable  of  taking  care  of  her.  Dr.  Seron, 
however,  succeeded  in  convincing  his  wife  that  a  family 
scene  would  be  injurious  for  the  infant,  whom  her  mother 
was  nursing.  He  reminded  Mme.  Seron  that  the  first  Lam- 
bert baby  had  died  in  convulsions ;  and  finally  he  induced 
her  to  postpone  her  intervention  until  the  child  was  nine 
months  old  and  might  leave  her  mother  without  danger. 

Meanwhile  the  landlord  of  "The  Three  Monarchs  "  was 
secretly  given  to  understand  that  Mme.  and  Mile.  Lambert 
must  be  made  comfortable,  and  that  Dr.  Seron  might  be 
held  responsible  for  the  reckoning. 

With  great  difficulty  during  those  interminable  nine 
months  did  the  ardent  grandmother  possess  her  soul  in 
patience.  She  occupied  the  time,  however,  in  working 
out  the  details  of  the  cleverly  devised  plot  by  which  she 
ultimately  succeeded  in  carrying  off  her  grandchild. 

Juliette  in  after  years  used  to  delight  to  hear  her  grand- 
mother describe  all  the  stages  of  that  famous  coup  :  how 
the  landlord  of  the  inn  was  made  privy  to  the  plot;  how 
there  stood  ready  a  coach,  nothing  less  than  a  berlinc, 
recalling  another  flight,  more  famous  but  less  successful ; 
how  in  the  coach  had  been  placed  a  warm  shawl  and  a 
bottle  of  hot  milk;  how,  while  Mme.  Lambert  was  haggling 
over  the  bill  with  the  landlord,  Mme.  Seron,  bearing  a 
certain  precious  bundle,  was  stealthily  stealing  to  the 
berline  and  then  speeding  away  with  baby  Juliette  to  join 
the  diligence  outside  the  town;  how  ultimately  the  stolen 
jewel  was  deposited  safely  at  Chauny,  whither  not  long 
afterwards  her  mother  followed  her. 


6  MADAME   ADAM 

In  vain  did  Dr.  Lambert,  penniless  and  disillusioned, 
plead  for  the  return  of  his  wife  and  daughter.  "  Not  until 
you  have  proved  yourself  able  to  support  them,"  was  Mme. 
Seron's  stern  reply;  and,  she  added  relentlessly,  "  I  adopt 
the  child  whom  you  abandoned,  whom  you  left  a  prey  to  the 
direst  poverty.     She  is  mine,  and  shall  be  as  long  as  I  live." 

Thus  ended  the  first  of  those  kidnappings  which  were 
to  recur  at  intervals  through  the  first  sixteen  years  of 
Juliette's  life,  until  her  first  marriage.  They  arose  not 
merely  from  the  rival  claims  of  parents  and  grandparents 
to  possess  the  child,  but  from  the  fact  that  each  of  these 
four  persons  held  pronounced  and  divergent  opinions  as 
to  the  upbringing  of  their  adored  one.  In  the  quarrels 
which  ensued,  Mme.  Seron  and  Dr.  Lambert  were  the 
protagonists;  Dr.  Seron  and  Mme.  Lambert  played  the 
parts  of  supers,  or  supported  one  side  or  the  other. 

We  are  all,  even  the  most  obstinate  and  strong-minded, 
moulded,  though  often  unconsciously,  by  various  intellec- 
tual influences.  To  this  rule  Juliette,  despite  her  in- 
domitable will  and  personal  idiosyncrasy,  was  no  exception. 
And  a  study  of  her  mental  development  shows  her  passing 
through  three  distinct  phases  :  her  childhood  and  youth, 
when  her  grandmother's  or  her  father's  influence  dominated 
alternately  :  middle  life,  when  broadly  speaking  she  sym- 
pathised with  her  father's  opinions  :  her  later  years,  after 
the  war  of  1870,  when  more  or  less  she  was  returning  to 
her  grandmother's  point  of  view. 

With  these  two  formative  forces,  with  these  two  remark- 
able persons,  Mme.  Seron  and  her  son-in-law,  Dr.  Lambert, 
we  must  become  intimately  acquainted  if  we  would  under- 
stand Juliette's  character  and  career.  We  must  also  re- 
member that  the  time  of  Juliette's  upbringing  was  the 
hey-day  of  the  romantic  period,  a  time  when  individualism 
ran  rampant,  when  the  most  Utopian  of  dreamers  believed 
they  were  about  to  realise  their  wildest  hopes.  It  was 
true  that  after  half  a  century  of  experiments  in  govern- 
ment France  had  practically  settled  down  for  a  while  into 
the  jog-trot  of  Louis  Philippe's  reign.  But  beneath  the 
veil  of  the  moderate  and  the  commonplace  which  this 
compromise  of  constitutional  monarchy  had  cast  over  the 
country,  there  bubbled  and  boiled  a  welter  of  effervescence 
which  twelve  years  after  Juliette's  birth  exploded  in  the 
Revolution  of  1848. 


BIRTH,  PARENTAGE  AND  INFANCY  7 

The  national  temperament  of  France  during  the  first 
half  of  the  last  century  partly  accounts  for  the  temperament 
of  Juliette's  family,  and  for  the  atmosphere  of  intellectual 
and  emotional  feverishness  in  which  she  was  brought  up. 
Looking  back  from  the  vantage  point  of  old  age  on  the 
stormy  scenes  of  her  childhood,  she  asked  :  "  Were  we  more 
sensitive  then,  more  susceptible,  more  dramatic  than  to- 
day ?  I  believe  we  were."  l  It  is  not  improbable  also  that 
Mme.  Adam,  regarding  her  childhood  through  the  long  vista 
of  years,  may  have  unconsciously  exaggerated  the  violence 
of  her  sentiments  and  experiences.  One  of  her  charms  is 
that  feeling  for  the  dramatic,  with  which  Gambetta  once 
reproached  her,  saying,  "  Vous  dramatisez  trop,  madame!  " 
My  love  for  my  grandmother  and  for  my  daughter," 
said  Mme.  Adam  to  me  shortly  before  her  eightieth 
birthday,  "  have  been  the  two  great  passions  of  my 
life." 

Of  her  grandmother,  she  announces  in  the  beginning  of 
her  Souvenirs:  "I  shall  write  of  her  often,  but  shall  I 
ever  ...  be  able  to  make  her  live  with  that  originality, 
that  passion  for  the  romantic  which  she  infused  into  us  all, 
lifting  on  to  the  plane  of  high  romance  the  whole  of  our 
family  life  and  each  one  of  our  daily  actions?  " 

Though  Mme.  Seron  hardly  ever  went  outside  her  own 
domestic  domain  except  to  attend  mass  on  Sunday,  her 
granddaughter  could  say  that  never  had  she  met  a  mind 

more  avid  of  adventure,  more  scornful  of  the  every-day 
and  the  commonplace,  more  eager  for  the  romantic  in  life 
and  in  literature." 

In  no  point,  save  in  their  passionate  adoration  of  Juliette, 
did  Mme.  Seron  and  her  son-in-law  agree.  Yet  in  tempera- 
ment they  were  not  altogether  unlike ;  for  they  were  both 
dreamers.  But  Juliette's  grandmother,  if  she  did  not 
possess  it,  at  least  respected  that  worldly  wisdom  which 
Dr.  Lambert  regarded  with  the  utmost  contempt.  He 
was  an  idealist  pure  and  simple.  We  have  seen  him  sacri- 
ficing a  brilliant  ecclesiastical  career  to  conscientious 
scruples.  We  have  seen  him  risking  the  happiness  of  his 
wife  and  child  in  his  pursuit  of  science.  We  shall  see  him 
again,  more  than  once  risking  not  only  his  family's 
happiness  but  his  own  life  in  the  cause  of  political  reform. 
I  am  the  daughter,"  writes  Mme.  Adam,  "  of  a  sincere 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  350. 


8  MADAME  ADAM 

sectary  ...  of  one  who  dreamed  of  absolute  liberty, 
absolute  equality.  .  .  .  Only  for  a  moment,  during  the 
Commune,  did  he  believe  his  dream  realised." 

Jean  Louis  Lambert  was  one  of  those  rare  persons  with 
tastes  both  scientific  and  literary.  But  it  was  only  classical 
literature  that  appealed  to  him.  He  was  a  passionate 
Grecian  and  an  ardent  admirer  of  the  French  master- 
pieces of  le  grand  siecle.  In  the  remarkable  literary  works 
which  his  own  day  was  producing,  in  the  novels  of  Balzac 
and  George  Sand,  which  were  his  mother-in-law's  meat 
and  drink,  he  took  not  the  slightest  interest.  His  Homer, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  almost  knew  by  heart ;  and  he  made 
his  little  daughter  as  familiar  with  tales  from  the  Iliad 
as  are  most  children  with  "  Red  Riding  Hood  "  or  "  Cin- 
derella." Dr.  Lambert  himself  wrote  verses  in  the  classic 
style,  which  he  would  recite  to  his  mother-in-law ;  but  there 
were  others  which  were  red  republican,  and  which  he  would 
have  kept  from  her  hearing  had  not  that  enfant  terrible  of 
a  Juliette  caught  them  up  and  repeated  them  parrot-like 
to  her  grandparents.  Dr.  Seron,  an  old  soldier  of  la  grande 
armee,  was  infuriated  by  poems  in  which  his  son-in-law 
dared  to  attack  his  idol,  the  Emperor. 

Indeed,  the  family  tendency  to  wrangle  was  consider- 
ably accentuated  by  the  fact  that  three  of  its  members 
(Juliette's  mother  took  no  interest  in  public  affairs)  held 
directly  divergent  political  opinions.  Mme.  Seron  was  a 
liberal  monarchist,  Dr.  Seron  a  Buonapartist,  and  Dr. 
Lambert  a  social  democrat.  None  of  these  fervent  partisans 
had  the  remotest  idea  of  keeping  their  opinions  to  them- 
selves. Consequently,  whenever  Dr.  Lambert  and  his  wife 
drove  over  from  Blerancourt,  a  village  nine  miles  from 
Chauny,  where  Juliette's  father  had  set  up  in  practice, 
the  voice  of  controversy  rose  high.  These  debates  gener- 
ally occurred  at  meal  time.  And  baby  Juliette,  accus- 
tomed to  have  the  attention  of  her  doting  elders  fixed  upon 
herself,  strongly  objected  to  these  diversions.  She  tells 
how  to  restore  herself  to  the  limelight  she  would  clamber 
into  the  middle  of  the  table  and  begin  to  upset  the  plates 
and  glasses.  The  device  never  failed.  Discussion  ceased ; 
the  three  controversialists  would  be  overcome  with  laughter, 
while  the  silent  member  of  the  group,  Juliette's  mother, 
would  suddenly  become  active.  Snatching  her  daughter 
from  the  wreck  on  the  table,  she  would  be  administering  a 


BIRTH,  PARENTAGE  AND  INFANCY  9 

sound  smacking  when  three  pairs  of  hands  would  be  eagerly 
outstretched  to  rescue  the  culprit.  Thus  Juliette  learnt 
two  lessons :  first,  not  to  fear  her  mother's  severity,  from 
which  she  might  always  count  upon  the  indulgence  of  her 
other  relatives  to  deliver  her ;  second,  to  appreciate  "  that 
first  born  of  common  sense,"  the  comic  spirit.  In  her 
earliest  years  it  was  her  inestimable  privilege  to  have 
"  laughter  for  nurse,  pure  fun  for  friend." 

George  Meredith,  it  will  be  remembered,  divides 
humanity  1  into  three  classes  :  the  non-laughers,  the  exces- 
sive laughers  and  those  who  stand  where  the  comic  spirit 
places  them,  "  at  middle  distance  between  the  inveterate 
opponents  and  the  drum  and  fife  supporters  of  comedy." 

In  the  table  scene  just  described,  each  of  these  three 
classes  is  represented.  Juliette's  mother  was  a  non- 
laugher,  a  morbid  person  whose  lack  of  fun,  as  is  inevitable 
with  women,  degraded  her  to  be  a  mere  household  drudge. 
Juliette's  grandfather,  the  jovial  doctor,  whose  funny 
stories,  nicknamed  Seronnades,  enlivened  the  countryside, 
was  of  the  drum  and  fife  order,  an  apostle  of  le  gros  rire. 
Juliette's  grandmother  and  father,  though  differing  in  so 
many  respects,  were  alike  endowed  with  the  true  comic 
spirit.  Long  years  later,  looking  back  on  her  turbulent 
childhood,  Mme.  Adam  wrote  :  "  I  should  probably  have 
been  intolerable,  had  not  the  gay  and  merry  temperaments 
of  my  grandparents  .  .  .  introduced  into  our  relationship 
a  jocular  spirit  which  did  not  admit  of  solemnity,  even 
in  our  grievances.  Whenever  I  succeeded  in  reconciling 
them  after  one  of  their  disputes,  it  was  because  I  had  made 
them  laugh."  2  "  Certainly,"  exclaimed  a  character  in 
one  of  Pierre  Mille's  stories,  "he  was  no  Latin,  for  he  took 
everything  seriously."  3  Juliette  Adam,  Gallic  by  birth, 
Graeco-Latin  by  education,  as  she  likes  to  describe  herself, 
has  always  been  ready  to  see  a  joke,  even  when  it  was  at 
her  own  expense.  Thus  she  is  proud  to  relate,  how  when 
at  one  of  George  Sand's  dinner-parties,  Flaubert,  in  Dumas' 
presence,  pointed  out  that  in  one  of  her  books  she  had 
made  a  man  who  had  lost  an  arm  take  a  box  in  both  hands, 
she  joined  in  the  laugh,  saying  gaily,  "  Merci,  Ma&tre."4 

1  An  Essay  on  the  Spirit  of  Comedy,  62,  1903. 

2  Souvenirs,  I.  127.  *  Le  Monarque,  169. 
4  Souvenirs,  III.  163. 


CHAPTER  II 

CHILDHOOD 

1839—1848 

"  De  V amour  el  de  V  indignation  furent  les  aliments  dont  on  nourrit  noire 
jeune  cosur." — Juliette  Adam,  Preface  to  her  Souvenirs,  I.  v. 

Despite  his  intense  desire  to  have  his  adored  child  in 
his  own  home,  Dr.  Lambert  constrained  himself  to  permit 
Juliette  to  remain  with  her  grandparents  until  she  was  three. 
But  on  his  daughter's  fourth  anniversary  her  father  put  in 
his  paternal  claim. 

Looking  back  over  more  than  three  score  years  and  ten 
Mme.  Adam  still  sees  that  day  as  the  first  which  stands 
out  clearly  in  her  memory.  She  remembers  it  for  several 
reasons — because  of  the  new  white  frock  she  wore,  em- 
broidered by  her  grandmother ;  because  the  bonne  Arthe- 
mise  on  that  day  called  her  "  Mademoiselle  "  for  the  first 
time;  because  her  grown-up  friend  Charles,  professor  at 
the  boys'  school  opposite,  embraced  her ;  because  when  her 
parents  arrived  late  as  usual  from  Blerancourt,  on  account 
of  the  bad  roads,  her  father  took  her  up  in  his  arms,  kissed 
her,  and  with  tears  in  his  eyes  said,  "  Juliette,  how  you 
have  grown,  it  is  so  long  since  I  have  seen  you — three 
months." 

But  above  all  that  day  stands  engraved  on  Juliette's 
recollection  because  in  the  midst  of  the  birthday  feast, 
there  fell  like  a  bombshell  descending  on  the  hitherto 
harmonious  family  party,  her  father's  words  :  "  This  time 
we  shall  take  Juliette  home  with  us."  Then  there  ensued 
one  of  those  impassioned  family  scenes  which  were  so 
frequent  in  Juliette's  childhood.  Mme.  Seron  refused  to 
give  up  her  granddaughter,  Dr.  Lambert  protested  vehem- 
ently that  he  would  have  his  child.  The  little  girl,  hardly 
out  of  babyhood,  was  herself  appealed  to  :  whom  did  she 
love  most — her  parents  or  her  grandparents  ?    Where  would 

10 


CHILDHOOD  11 

she  like  to  live — at  Chauny  or  at  Blerancourt?  But  in 
the  end  Mine.  Seron  won  the  day,  as  she  usually  did,  and 
probably  for  the  excellent  reason  that  it  was  she  who  held 
the  family  purse-strings. 

There  was,  however,  in  this  vehement,  romantic,  impul- 
sive lady  a  strain  of  consistency  and  logic.  Because  during 
that  dinner-table  wrangle  with  her  son-in-law  she  had 
based  her  claim  to  Juliette's  remaining  with  her  on  the 
fact  that  there  were  better  educational  facilities  at  Chauny 
than  at  Blerancourt,  she  felt  compelled  to  act  on  that 
assertion.  Consequently,  she  lost  no  time  in  sending 
Juliette,  tiny  as  she  was,  to  school. 

But  this  important  crisis  in  Juliette's  career  could  not 
pass  without  yet  another  drame  de  famille.  To  send  so 
young  a  child  to  the  pe?ision,  to  "  prison,"  as  they  called 
it,  seemed  to  the  easygoing  Dr.  Seron  and  to  the  bonne 
Arthemise,  who  doted  on  her  little  charge,  as  nothing  short 
of  cruelty.  Like  a  servant  out  of  one  of  Moliere's  comedies, 
Arthemise  rated  her  mistress  soundly,  whereupon  she 
received  an  entirely  disregarded  notice  to  pack  up  her 
baggage  and  be  off. 

Of  this  scene  the  little  victim  was  herself  a  spectator. 
And  it  was  as  a  captive,  therefore,  that  she  regarded  her- 
self, when  her  grandmother  led  her  off  and  delivered  her 
up  to  her  schoolmistress,  the  grim,  moustached  Mme. 
Dufey,  who,  with  what  appeared  to  Juliette  a  veritable 
turnkey's  smile,  received  her  with  the  announcement  : 
"  I  had  the  mother,  now  I  have  the  daughter." 

Then  followed  a  hurricane  of  a  day.  Cries,  sobs  and 
physical  protestations  landed  the  new  pupil  in  the  school 
garret,  wherefrom  she  was  extricated  in  the  afternoon  by 
Arthemise,  who  had  come  to  take  her  home.  But  home  to 
her  cruel  grandmother  this  wilful  child  absolutely  refused 
to  go.  No  sooner  was  she  outside  the  school  gates  than 
she  set  off  running  in  the  direction  of  the  village  where 
Arthemise  lived.  There  Arthemise  weakly  followed  her. 
And  it  was  only  late  in  the  evening  that  the  runaway, 
having  been  put  to  sleep  in  another  and  pleasanter  garret, 
was  driven  back  to  Chauny  by  her  grandfather  in  his  gig. 

Juliette  felt  that  she  had  won  a  victory.  Her  grand- 
mother had  certainly  learnt  a  lesson.  She  now  realised 
that  her  granddaughter  was  the  kind  of  child  she  herself 
had  been — one  of  those  who  must  be  led  and  not  driven. 


12  MADAME   ADAM 

Henceforth  Juliette  was  brought  up  on  what  we  now  call 
the  Montessori  system.  And  the  time  came  when  she 
herself  elected  to  go  with  one  of  her  playmates  to  that  same 
school,  which  she  now  found  quite  amusing. 

Indeed,  considering  the  strongly  pronounced  and  utterly 
divergent  opinions  held  as  to  her  upbringing  by  the  four 
persons  who  desired  to  control  her,  the  only  possible  course 
was  for  the  child,  as  soon  as  she  was  able,  to  train  herself 
as  far  as  possible. 

But  there  were  certain  questions  which  even  this  head- 
strong little  girl  found  settled  without  her  participation. 
There  was  notably  the  religious  question.  Dr.  Lambert, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  a  bitter  anti-clerical,  an  aggressive 
agnostic  of  the  old-fashioned  Voltairean  stamp.  Mme. 
Lambert,  Dr.  and  Mme.  Seron  were  all  catholics.  And 
there  gnawed  at  Mme.  Lambert's  heart  the  painful  secret 
that  Juliette  was  still  a  little  heathen,  for,  as  the  result  of 
her  father's  anti-clericalism,  she  had  never  been  baptized. 
To  remedy  this  omission,  without  confessing  it  to  her  parents, 
Juliette's  mother  devised  a  clever  and  effectual  stratagem. 
Lnder  the  pretext  of  being  present  at  the  wedding  of  one 
of  her  mother's  friends,  the  little  girl  was  brought  over  to 
Blerancourt  by  her  grandfather.  Then  at  the  end  of  the 
wedding  ceremony,  she  was  hurried  into  one  corner  of  the 
church  and  held  over  what  seemed  to  her  a  yawning  gulf 
of  a  basin,  where,  amidst  her  violent  protestations,  she 
was  transformed,  as  her  grandfather  afterwards  told  her, 
from  "a  poor  little  unbaptized  girl"  into  "  a  big,  happy 
baptized  girl."  But  this  blessed  conversion  she  was  care- 
fully enjoined  not  to  mention  to  her  father,  because  he  did 
not  like  churches. 

Whether  the  youthful  convert  would  have  kept  the 
secret  is  doubtful.  But  the  opportunity  of  doing  so  was 
reft  from  her  by  one  of  her  playmates,  who  during  the 
wedding  festivities  called  her,  in  her  father's  presence,  by 
her  baptismal  names  of  "  Camille  Ambrosine."  This  led 
to  inquiries  and  to  a  disclosure,  followed,  of  course,  by 
the  inevitable  drame  de  famille.  Fortunately  for  the  con- 
spirators an  accident  to  one  of  Dr.  Lambert's  patients  put 
an  end  to  this  extremely  unpleasant  situation.  And  while 
the  Blerancourt  doctor  was  at  the  injured  man's  bedside 
his  father-in-law  seized  the  occasion  to  drive  the  "  little 
bone  of  contention  "  back  to  Chauny. 


CHILDHOOD  13 

Juliette,  having  been  once  captured  by  her  catholic 
relatives,  Dr.  Lambert  agreed  to  surrender  her  mind  to  their 
keeping  until  she  had  taken  her  first  communion.  And  he 
must  have  been  pleased  that  Mme.  Seron,  with  her  usual 
ambitious  desire  to  force  the  pace  in  Juliette's  education, 
persuaded  the  Dean  to  admit  her  clever  little  grand- 
daughter into  the  Church  one  year  earlier  than  was 
customary,  at  ten  instead  of  eleven. 

"'  We  must  furnish  the  little  brain,"  was  Mme.  Seron's 
favourite  expression.  She  herself  had  never  acquired 
much  book  learning.  But,  in  order  to  educate  her  grand- 
child, she  for  a  while  put  on  one  side  her  adored  novels 
and  studied  French  history,  of  which  she  was  most  eager 
that  Juliette  should  take  a  correct  view.  That  correct 
view  was,  of  course,  Mme.  Seron's  own,  and  was  the  con- 
tradiction of  her  husband's  and  son-in-law's  opinions. 
Juliette's  grandmother  taught  her  to  regard  the  French 
middle-class,  the  bourgeoisie,  as  the  salt  of  the  earth,  and 
the  government  of  Louis  Philippe  as  the  only  possible 
government,  infinitely  superior  to  the  Buonapartism  which 
Dr.  Seron  and  to  the  Jacobinism  which  Dr.  Lambert  would 
have  liked  to  restore. 

So  Juliette,  surrounded  by  piles  of  lesson-books,  was 
kept  hard  at  work  till  late  in  the  evening,  while  her  grand- 
father laughed  at  her  for  being  a  blue-stocking,  and  dubbed 
her  "  Mile.  Phenomene." 

But  even  the  jocular  Dr.  Seron  could  sometimes  be  seri- 
ous :  and  he  gravely  warned  his  wife  that  if  she  continued 
thus  to  press  the  little  girl  beyond  her  years  misfortune 
would  follow. 

His  warning  being  unheeded,  the  prognostication  came 
true.  Its  fulfilment  was  hastened  by  three  weeks  at 
Blerancourt,  where  Dr.  Lambert  talked  to  his  little  daughter 
as  if  she  were  grown  up,  and  by  a  tempestuous  journey  home 
with  her  mother,  followed  by  an  even  stormier  drame  de 
famille  on  her  arrival  at  Chauny. 

Juliette  fell  seriously  ill.  On  her  recovery,  Dr.  Seron, 
who  seems  to  have  been  the  only  member  of  the  family 
endowed  with  common  sense,  insisted  on  his  granddaughter 
being  removed  from  the  atmosphere  of  school-books  and 
drames  de  famille  to  a  serener  and  healthier  air. 

The  child  was  sent  to  visit  her  grandmother's  three  step- 
sisters, three  maiden  ladies  who  lived  with  their  mother, 


14  MADAME   ADAM 

in  the  heart  of  the  country,  at  a  village  called  Chivres,  not 
far  from  Soissons. 

"  My  aunts  !  Ah  !  you  must  love  my  aunts  !  "  exclaimed 
Mme.  Adam,  as  one  day,  in  the  salon  at  Gif,  we  talked  of 
these  delectable  virgins.  And  indeed  one  could  not  help 
loving  the  charming,  though  eccentric  ladies,  les  demoi- 
selles Sophie,  Constance  and  Anastasie  Raincourt.  They 
represent  a  type  totally  unknown  in  Great  Britain,  though 
I  suspect  it  might  not  at  that  time  have  been  altogether 
impossible  to  discover  their  counterparts  in  other  French 
country  districts,  or  perhaps  in  remote  corners  of  New 
England. 

The  aunts  were  a  bundle  of  contradictions  and  surprises. 
In  their  short  gathered  print  skirts,  aprons  and  kerchiefs, 
they  looked  like  peasant  women,  and  they  worked  like 
peasant  women  too,  at  hay-making,  poultry-keeping  and 
fruit-farming.  But  so  distinguished  was  their  bearing  that 
in  their  humble  attire  they  had  the  air  of  great  ladies  in 
disguise,  while  their  discussion  during  hay-making  of 
Sismondi's  Italian  Republics  showed  them  to  be  veritable 
femmes  savantes.  Though  living  in  the  heart  of  the  country, 
these  original  spinsters  took  a  deep  interest  in  all  the 
literary  and  political  movements  of  the  town.  Though, 
with  their  step-sister,  Mme.  Seron,  they  were  firmly  con- 
vinced that  a  constitutional  monarchy  was  the  only  ideal 
form  of  government,  they  did  not  altogether  share  Mme. 
Seron' s  admiration  for  Louis  Philippe.  They  criticised 
his  policy  and  approved  of  the  opposition  led  by  M.  Odillon 
Barot. 

In  almost  every  respect  Juliette's  life  at  Chivres  was  a 
complete  contrast  to  her  life  at  Chauny  or  Blerancourt. 
Instead  of,  as  at  Chauny,  sitting  up  late  over  her  books 
and  then  going  to  bed  in  her  grandmother's  stuffy  chamber, 
with  the  windows  tightly  closed  and  the  atmosphere  in- 
fested by  the  midnight  oil  burnt  to  enable  Mme.  Seron  to 
read  her  romances,  Juliette  at  Chivres,  after  a  day  spent 
in  healthy  open-air  exercise,  lay  down  with  the  lamb  and 
rose  with  the  lark,  having  slept  by  herself  in  a  large  airy 
room  with  the  windows  wide  open. 

Whereas  at  Chauny  no  interest  was  taken  in  house 
arrangement,  while  picturesque  old  family  heirlooms  were 
regarded  as  lumber  and  relegated  to  the  attic,  and  any 
artistic  feeling  found  its  only  expression  in  personal  adorn- 


CHILDHOOD  15 

ment,  at  Chivrcs  it  was  just  the  opposite  :  Juliette's  fine 
clothes  were  all  folded  away,  and  she  was  dressed  like  her 
aunts  in  peasant  costume ;  but  her  natural  love  of  the  beau- 
tiful was  gratified  by  the  daintiness  and  artistry  of  all  the 
household  arrangements,  by  the  handsome  old  chests  and 
commodes,  the  embroidered  draperies,  the  nosegays  of 
fresh  wild  flowers,  and  the  beautifully  bound  books  ranged 
trimly  on  their  shelves. 

The  intellectual  atmosphere  of  Chivres  was  likewise 
entirely  different  from  that  of  Chauny  and  Blerancourt. 
Dr.  Lambert's  heroes,  Louis  Blanc  and  Proudhon,  were 
anathema  to  such  worshippers  of  the  established  order  as 
the  aunts.  In  the  light  of  her  aunts'  wide  interest  in  all 
manifestations  of  nature,  her  grandmother's  concentration 
on  the  merely  human  aspect  of  life  suddenly  appeared  to 
Juliette  as  intensely  narrow.  It  was  at  Chivres  that  Juliette 
first  acquired  that  passionate  love  of  nature  which  she 
was  later  to  express  so  eloquently  in  her  books.  It  was  at 
Chivrcs  that  Juliette  learnt  to  take  an  interest  in  birds  and 
beasts  and  flowers,  and  also  in  inanimate  things,  to  find — 

"...  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks, 
Sermons  in  stones  and  good  in  everything." 

In  her  aunts'  company  the  simplest  actions  of  rural  life 
acquired  for  the  little  girl  some  deep  significance  :  watering 
flowers  in  the  garden  she  seemed  to  be  quenching  their 
thirst,  gathering  fruit  in  the  orchard  she  was  easing  the 
burden  of  overladen  trees,  cutting  clover  in  the  paddock 
she  was  receiving  a  gift  from  bountiful  earth. 

For  Aunt  Sophie  even  stones  and  metals  had  a  voice  or 
resonance.  She  would  place  upon  a  crystal  tray  various 
substances  differing  in  form,  some  round,  some  flat,  and 
with  a  little  hammer  would  play  upon  them  curious 
melodies. 

While  Juliette's  father  had  brought  her  up  on  tales  from 
the  Iliad,  Aunt  Sophie,  who  was  an  accomplished  Latin 
scholar,  told  her  stories  from  the  /Eneid,  which  seemed  to 
her  strangely  like  an  echo  of  her  beloved  Homer.  While 
her  grandmother's  favourite  novelist  had  been  Balzac,  the 
aunts  talked  to  her  admiringly  of  George  Sand's  peasant 
romances,  and  vaguely  hinted  at  longer  novels  by  the  same 
author,  which  they  did  not  altogether  like,  but  which 
Juliette  would  read  when  she  grew  up. 


16  MADAME  ADAM 

But  the  greatest  contrast  of  all  was  the  atmosphere  of 
calm  which  pervaded  Chivres,  the  harmony  in  which  the 
aunts  and  their  mother  lived,  so  different  from  the  per- 
petual wrangling  of  Chauny  and  Blerancourt.  No  wonder 
that  Juliette  after  two  months  of  this  serenity  returned  to 
her  grandmother  a  new  creature,  in  mens  sana  in  corpore 
sano.  No  wonder  that  the  perfect  success  of  this  first 
visit  caused  it  to  be  repeated  annually  throughout  Juliette's 
childhood.  Indeed,  as  time  went  on,  as  Juliette  grew  in 
years,  as  the  feverish  intellectuality  of  Chauny  and  Bleran- 
court intensified,  the  summer  visit  to  Chivres  became  more 
and  more  necessary. 

Having  done  his  best  to  keep  his  word  to  his  mother- 
in-law  and  to  permit  her  to  dominate  Juliette's  mind  until 
her  first  communion,  once  that  event  was  consummated 
Dr.  Lambert  felt  at  liberty  to  educate  his  little  girl  in  his 
own  way,  in  his  own  ideas,  and  to  make  her,  as  he  expressed 
it,  "  his  daughter  according  to  the  spirit  as  well  as  accord- 
ing to  the  flesh." 

In  his  earlier  talks  with  Juliette  he  had  endeavoured  to 
impose  a  certain  reserve  upon  his  expansive  nature. 
Though  finding  it  impossible  to  exclude  his  beliefs,  his  hopes 
and  enthusiasms  altogether  from  their  conversation,  he 
had  but  alluded  to  them  vaguely,  saying,  "  when  you  are 
older  I  will  explain  to  you  such  and  such,  when  you  are 
older  you  will  understand  this  or  that." 

This  seed,  though  sown  in  an  almost  infantile  mind,  had 
not  fallen  on  barren  ground.  Not  one  of  these  remarks 
had  been  lost  on  Juliette's  precocious  and  naturally  specu- 
lative intelligence.  She  was  therefore  well  prepared  to 
receive  with  enthusiasm  those  hopeful  doctrines  of  liberty, 
fraternity  and  equality  with  which  her  father  now  set 
seriously  to  work  to  inculcate  his  eleven-year-old  little 
daughter. 

On  Juliette's  return  from  Chivres  in  the  autumn  of 
1847,  she  paid  a  visit  to  her  parents  at  Blerancourt.  And 
it  was  then  that  her  father  said  to  her  :  "  Now  that  you 
have  discharged  your  obligations  to  your  grandmother's 
religion,  I  can  speak  to  you  frankly  of  mine." 

The  chief  articles  of  Dr.  Lambert's  creed  were  a  belief 
in  human  solidarity  and  a  conviction  in  the  inherent  good- 
ness of  nature.  With  the  great  Jean  Jacques  he  held 
society,  not  nature,  responsible  for  all  the  evils  which  have 


CHILDHOOD  17 

befallen  mankind.  His  "  great  negation,"  as  his  daughter 
was  later  to  call  it,  consisted  in  the  denial  that  the  finite 
can  ever  be  capable  of  comprehending  the  infinite.  Nature, 
he  held,  was  rich  enough  and  vast  enough  to  satisfy  all 
man's  craving  for  knowledge,  sociability  and  love.  "  If 
you  must  worship  something,"  he  would  say  to  Juliette, 
"  then  worship  the  sun  which  lightens  and  warms  you,  in 
whose  rays  all  things  germinate,  breathe  and  blossom." 
While  for  the  Christian  religion  Dr.  Lambert  had  little 
respect,  its  Founder  he  held  in  the  greatest  veneration. 
While  Christ  came  to  obliterate  all  distinctions  of  race  and 
caste,  Christianity  seemed  to  Juliette's  father  ever  raising 
barriers  between  man  and  man.  "  Christ,"  he  used  to 
say,  "  came  to  save  what  he  called  '  souls,'  we  [the  social 
democrats]  come  to  save  society  (la  personne  sociale)  by 
establishing  equality,  fraternity,  liberty." 

In  days  when  trade  unionism  was  beginning  in  Great 
Britain,  and  when  Proudhon's  teaching  was  laying  the 
foundations  of  future  syndicalism  in  France,  Dr.  Lambert 
was  a  firm  believer  in  the  right  of  all  men  to  work,  and  to 
insist  on  receiving  for  that  work  a  just  wage.  "  Juliette," 
he  would  say,  "  I  rejoice  to  see  you  talking  to  a  working- 
man  ...  as  if  he  were  your  brother.  I  want  you  to  be 
an  apostle  of  human  happiness  and  universal  good.  I  love 
the  weak  and  helpless  more  than  myself.  To  see  struggle 
and  suffering  tortures  me.  To  those  who  have  nothing 
one  must  give  oneself  up  entirely,  keeping  nothing  back." 

At  such  words  the  little  girl's  heart  glowed  within  her. 
With  all  her  passionate  little  soul  she  responded  to  her 
father's  pity  for  the  unfortunate,  with  all  the  determina- 
tion of  her  strong  will  she  resolved  to  spend  her  life  helping 
them. 

Though  in  years  to  come  some  of  her  father's  notions 
were  to  appear  to  her  quixotic,  though  even  then  she  and 
her  grandmother  laughed  at  his  affecting  the  workman's 
blouse,  for  example,  though  as  time  went  on  his  extrava- 
gance and  lack  of  common  sense  were  frequently  to  make 
her  tremble  for  his  safety,  she  never — not  even  when  intel- 
lectually they  had  drifted  apart — ceased  to  reverence  the 
breadth  of  his  knowledge,  the  range  of  his  charity  and  his 
unfailing  good  nature.  The  words  apostle  and  charity 
ever  conjured  up  before  her  a  vision  of  her  father.  In  spite 
of  their   perpetual    disagreement,    even   Juliette's   grand- 


18  MADAME   ADAM 

mother  would  say  of  her  son-in-law  :    "  He  is  a  dreamer, 
but  he  is  sincere,  and  he  has  a  heart  of  gold." 

Dr.  Lambert  was  indeed  one  of  those  intellectual  enthu- 
siasts who  were  largely  responsible  for  the  Revolution  of 
1848.  For  these  men  of  1848  Mme.  Adam  has  always 
cherished  the  most  profound  respect.  Though  in  after  life 
she  came  to  regard  them  as  childishly  ingenuous  and  heed- 
less of  the  possibility  of  realising  their  dreams,  she  has  ever 
venerated  their  "  passionate  altruism,"  their  "  craving  to 
sacrifice  themselves  in  the  people's  cause,"  their  revolt 
against  that  famous  formula  ascribed  to  M.  Guizot, 
"  enrich  yourselves."  "  The  men  of  1848,"  writes  Mme. 
Adam,  "  were  apostles  and  saints.  Never  have  there  been 
more  honesty,  more  virtue,  a  nobler  simplicity.  They  were 
no  mere  politicians.  They  were  souls  in  love  with  the  ideal. 
All  those  whom  I  have  known  were  as  sincere  as  my  father 
.  .  .  and  to  have  associated  with  them  is  to  honour  and 
cherish  their  memory." 


CHAPTER   III 

HER   FIRST   REVOLUTION 
1848 

(From  a  Schoolgirl's  Point  of  Viexv) 

"  Les  homines  de  1848  etaient  des  apotres,  des  saints." — Mme.  Adam 
Souvenirs. 

Mme.  Adam  has  lived  through  four  Revolutions.  The 
first,  that  of  1848,  occurred  when  she  was  eleven.  In  the 
previous  year,  when  she  paid  her  usual  summer  visit  to 
Chivres,  she  found  her  aunts  perturbed  by  the  political 
situation.  They  were  eagerly  devouring  the  columns  of 
the  National.  They  were  talking  of  politics  from  morn 
till  night.  Much  to  their  mother's  disapproval,  they 
brought  their  eleven-year-old  niece  into  their  discussions. 
"  You  are  tiring  the  poor  little  thing  to  death  !  "  remon- 
strated Juliette's  great-grandmother. 

"  No,"  rejoined  her  daughters,  "  the  child  is  quite  old 
enough  to  listen  and  to  understand." 

"  Besides,"  continued  Aunt  Constance,  who  was  the 
ironist  of  the  three,  "  it  will  not  be  unprofitable  to  you, 
mademoiselle,  to  learn,  if  not  with  your  ears,  at  least 
with  your  mouth  as  you  yawn,  the  views  on  public  affairs 
held  by  such  highly  intelligent  persons  as  your  aunts." 

"  But,"  writes  Juliette,  "  I  did  not  yawn,  for  my  mind 
was  interested  in  all  matters  political  and  literary."  ! 

From  her  aunts'  point  of  view  the  child  saw  those 
surging  political  movements  of  the  day  at  an  angle  quite 
different  from  that  at  which,  under  her  father's  direction, 
she  had  been  accustomed  to  regard  them. 

At  Chivies  her  father's  heroes,  Louis  Blanc,  Lcdru 
Rollin,  Proudhon,  were  held  in  horror.  As  utterly  sub- 
versive of  all  public  order  the  aunts  regarded  Lcdru-Rollin's 

1  Souvenirs,  I.  247. 
19 


20  MADAME   ADAM 

famous  speech,  when,  pleading  before  the  Court  of  Cassa- 
tion, the  republican  barrister  had  challenged  the  Procureur 
General,  crying  :  "  Procureur  General,  who  appointed 
you?"  "The  Ministry."  "I,  being  an  elector,  may 
dismiss  ministries.  In  whose  name  do  you  speak?  " 
"  In  the  king's  name."  "  I,  being  an  elector — history 
proves  it — can  make  and  unmake  kings.  Procureur 
General,  on  your  knees,  on  your  knees  before  my  sove- 
reignty." While  as  for  Proudhon's  famous  maxim, 
"  Property  is  theft,"  the  aunts  exclaimed  :  "  Why,  it's 
the  end  of  the  world."  Social  reform  had  no  place  in  these 
good  ladies'  political  programme.  They  were  content 
with  the  existing  order.  They  had  no  sympathy  with 
Dr.  Lambert's  doctrine  of  the  right  to  work,  nor  with 
Ledru-Rollin  when  he  declared  :  "  The  workers  have  been 
slaves;  they  have  been  serfs;  to-day  they  are  wage- 
earners;  we  must  strive  to  make  them  partners."  x  The 
reforms  which  the  aunts  advocated  in  their  talks  with  their 
niece  were  merely  administrative.  What  they  desired 
above  all  was  to  see  Paris  dethroned  from  her  seat  as  the 
one  centre  of  influence  in  the  kingdom.  They  wanted 
decentralisation,  the  revival  of  the  old  provincialism. 
"  Remember,"  said  Aunt  Sophie  to  Juliette,  "  a  time  will 
come,  I  am  sure  of  it,  when,  after  various  Jacobin  and 
Buonapartist  experiments,  after  a  series  of  revolutions, 
you  will  remember  how  wise,  how  essentially  French,  how 
truly  national,  were  the  opinions  of  your  old  aunts."  2 

The  last  months  of  1847  Juliette  was  permitted  to 
spend  with  her  parents.  Blerancourt  in  those  days  was 
becoming,  under  Dr.  Lambert's  influence,  a  centre  of 
violent  political  agitation.  The  number  of  Dr.  Lambert's 
disciples  was  increasing  daily,  and  his  socialistic  ideas 
were  being  promulgated  in  the  neighbouring  villages. 
Mme.  Seron  wrote  constantly  demanding  her  grand- 
daughter's return.  She  feared  that  from  being  a  Repub- 
lican, which  was  bad  enough,  Juliette  would  be  made  into 
a  socialist,  converted  from  a  pagan  naturiste,  as  she  called 
it,  into  an  atheist.  Finally,  such  remonstrances  passing 
unheeded,  she  threatened  that  if  her  granddaughter  were 
not  immediately  restored  she  would  disinherit  her,  and 
Juliette  would  be  reduced  to  depend  for  her  dowry  on 
such  savings  as  her  father  might  accumulate.     This  prac- 

1  Biographie  Generate  under  "  Ledru-Rollin."  a  See  post,  243. 


HER   FIRST   REVOLUTION  21 

tically  meant  that  Juliette  would  have  no  dowry  at  all. 
For  Dr.  Lambert,  far  from  saving,  could  never  keep  any 
money  in  his  pocket.  In  face  of  poverty  and  distress  he 
was  a  veritable  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  and  would  give  away 
the  very  clothes  from  his  back.  But  to  one  whose  mind 
was  set  so  far  above  filthy  lucre  Mme.  Seron's  threat  was 
meaningless.  And  to  his  mother-in-law's  letter  he  replied 
that  Juliette  would  not  need  a  dowry  as  he  had  decided 
to  marry  her  to  a  working-man.  But  such  a  destiny  did 
not  suit  Mile.  Juliette  at  all.  She  had  often  dreamed  of 
a  cottage,  of  a  farm,  but  always  with  a  gentleman  (un 
monsieur)  for  husband.  And  when  her  father  told  her  of 
this  letter,  she  exclaimed  :  "Of  course  you  are  joking." 
"  But  no,"  he  replied;  "  that  really  is  my  idea."  "  Then 
it  is  not  mine,"  x  retorted  this  eleven-year-old  socialist,  to 
whom  her  father's  design  seemed  utterly  preposterous  and 
cruel  to  the  last  degree. 

True,  she  loved  the  people  more  and  more  every  day. 
True,  it  seemed  to  her  in  moments  of  exaltation  that  she 
was  ready  to  sacrifice  herself  in  their  service;  but  that 
she,  whom  generations  had  raised  above  them,  should 
become  one  of  them,  no.  Father  and  daughter  were 
equally  violent.  This,  their  first  disagreement,  was,  to 
say  the  least  of  it,  tempestuous.  And  it  was  well  that 
Mme.  Seron  arrived  the  next  day  to  take  her  daughter 
back  to  the  less  exalted  atmosphere  of  Chauny. 

Though  Dr.  Lambert  continued  to  cherish  his  dream  of 
a  working-class  marriage  for  Juliette,  for  the  time  being 
he  ceased  to  urge  its  fulfilment;  and  for  the  time  being 
Juliette  found  it  not  impossible  to  reconcile  her  socialism 
with  filial  devotion. 

At  Chauny  she  found  that  her  grandmother's  political 
principles,  like  those  of  the  aunts  at  Chivres,  had  under- 
gone a  change.  Mme.  Seron  had  lost  her  passion  for  the 
citizen  king.  She  had  come  to  realise  the  necessity  for 
reform.  Juliette  was  delighted,  and  she  expected  her 
father  to  be  equally  pleased  by  his  mother-in-law's  partial 
conversion.  But  she  did  not  then  know  human  nature. 
It  was  not  until  much  later  that  she  understood  how  a 
partisan  is  far  more  distrustful  of  opinions  differing  slightly 
from  his  own  than  of  those  which  arc  more  remote.  Dr. 
Lambert  mistrusted  a  reform  movement  led  by  M.  Odillon 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  272. 


22  MADAME   ADAM 

Barot  as  strongly  as  the  aunts  at  Chivres  mistrusted  any 
reform  advocated  by  that  extreme  liberal,  M.  Ledru- 
Rollin. 

Juliette's  schooling  had  been  interrupted  by  her  three 
months  at  Chauny,  and  also  by  a  visit  to  Boulogne,  to 
which  we  shall  refer  later,  paid  in  company  with  her 
father  in  the  summer  of  1847. 

After  Christmas  she  returned  to  the  pensionnat.  Many 
changes  had  taken  place  in  the  school  during  the  five 
years  which  had  elapsed  since  that  eventful  day  when 
she  made  her  debut  as  a  scholar.  The  ogress,  Mme.  Dufey, 
had  been  succeeded  by  two  friends  of  Juliette's  mother, 
the  Miles.  Andre.  The  school  had  expanded,  and  a  new 
building  had  been  erected  on  the  site,  alas  !  of  Mme. 
Seron's  garden,  in  which  Juliette  had  spent  some  of  her 
most  entrancing  hours.  On  the  occasion  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  this  her  land  of  delight,  her  "  temple  of  verdure," 
as  she  called  it,  there  had  been  a  long  and  violent  battle 
between  this  little  devotee  of  nature  and  her  grandmother. 
The  excuse  that  the  garden  had  been  sold  in  order  to 
provide  Juliette  with  a  dowry  did  not  appeal  to  her  in 
the  least.  Money  had  never  loomed  large  in  the  child's 
imagination.  She  loathed  the  mention  of  it ;  for  it  always 
seemed  to  her  to  lead  to  family  quarrels.  The  only  use 
she  had  for  it  personally  was  for  the  purchase  of  sugar- 
drops,  which  she  distributed  among  her  schoolfellows. 

It  was  long  before  the  little  girl  could  be  persuaded  to 
enter  the  building  which  seemed  to  her  the  grave  of  her 
brightest  dreams  and  her  most  cherished  joys. 

Now,  in  the  early  weeks  of  1848,  Juliette  found  her 
school  seething  with  a  political  excitement,  which  she, 
with  her  violent  views,  was  the  last  person  to  allay. 

With  an  important  air  the  young  politicians  of  the 
Pensionnat  Andre  went  about  announcing  "  Vheure  des 
reformes  a  sonne."  The  playground  echoed  with  cries  of 
"  Vive  la  Reforme  !  "  "  A  bas  Guizot !  "  The  sympathies 
of  the  youthful  reformers  were  entirely  with  the  people, 
le  grand  peuple.  They  were  transported  into  a  veritable 
fury  on  the  day  when  they  heard  that  "  the  people  "  had 
been  massacred,  the  inoffensive  people,  engaged  in  a 
manifestation  strictly  within  the  bounds  of  the  law  ! 
Upon  the  heels  of  these  tidings,  however,  followed  quickly 
the    news    that    "  the    people "    were    revenged.     Louis 


HER  FIRST   REVOLUTION  23 

Philippe,  after  having  twice  failed  to  form  a  ministry, 
the  Duchess  of  Orleans,  after  a  vain  attempt  to  establish 
a  regency,  were  in  flight.  "  The  people  "  had  raised 
barricades,  "  the  people  "  had  proclaimed  the  Republic. 
"  The  people,"  read  Juliette  and  her  schoolfellows  in  the 
columns  of  La  Democratic  Pacifique,  had  behaved  magnifi- 
cently, they  had  shown  themselves  worthy  of  every  kind 
of  liberty.  Not  a  theft,  not  a  single  violation  of  property, 
had  been  committed.  "  The  people,"  in  rags  (loqueteux) 
put  up  notices,  "  Death  to  Thieves,"  in  the  corridors  of 
the  Tuileries.  "  The  people,"  themselves  penniless,  had 
protected  the  treasures  in  the  Bank. 

On  the  great  day  of  the  Revolution,  the  26th  of  February, 
Dr.  Lambert  came  over  to  Chauny.  He  was  in  the  seventh 
heaven  of  delight.  Even  Mme.  Seron  did  not  seem  alarmed 
at  the  monarchy's  collapse.  Her  husband,  however,  was 
less  pleased.  He  had  thought  that  the  Revolution  would 
be  made  on  behalf  of  his  hero,  Louis  Buonaparte.  And 
this  soldier  of  la  grande  armee  vented  his  spleen  on  the 
first  republican  who  came  to  his  hand.  This  unhappy 
republican x  chanced  to  be  his  son-in-law.  "  Your 
Republic,"  he  jeered,  "  your  stupidly  democratic  Republic  !  " 

"  But,"  writes  Juliette,  "  father  only  laughed,  grand- 
mother smiled,  and  I  said — 

"  '  Ah  !  my  poor  grandfather,  your  Buonaparte  must  be 
very  sick  at  our  Republic,  however  socialist  he  has  pre- 
tended to  be.'  " 

Juliette  remembers  that,  towards  the  end  of  dinner  on 
that  fateful  26th  of  February,  her  grandfather,  having, 
by  way  of  consolation  for  his  disappointment,  drunk  an 
extra  bottle  or  so  of  his  petit  Macon,  opening  his  eyes 
very  wide,  addressed  his  family,  and  said  :  "  Well  !  I  see 
the  future  as  clear  as  day !  .  .  .  I  see  your  Republic,  do 
you  hear  me,  Lambert  ?  Do  you  hear  me,  Juliette  ?  I 
see  it  trampled  under  foot  by  my  Buonaparte.  I  tell  you, 
I  scream  it  at  you :  revolutions,  don't  you  know,  always 
end  in  empires."  2 

At  school  next  day  Juliette  found  all  her  friends  in  a 
state  of  great  agitation.  Half  of  the  scholars  had  stayed 
away.  Their  parents  had  been  afraid  to  let  them  leave 
home.  The  Revolution  might  spread  into  the  provinces. 
There  was  a  glass  factory  in  the  town,  and  all  the  work- 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  280.  2  Ibid.,  281. 


24  MADAME   ADAM 

men  were  in  favour  of  the  Republic.  Might  they  not 
proclaim  it  at  Chauny,  and  revolt  and  perhaps  plunder? 

Hardly  had  Juliette  arrived  at  school  than  she  was 
summoned  to  the  study  of  the  Miles.  Andre.  There  she 
was  questioned  as  to  what  her  father  thought  of  the 
situation. 

"  'Well,  Juliette,  your  father  must  be  highly  pleased, 
he  who  has  always  been  a  republican.  Have  you  seen 
him?  ' 

"'Yes,  mesdemoiselles,  he  came  yesterday,  and  he  is 
delighted.  He  says  that  at  last  France  will  show  herself 
worthy  of  her  history,  that  she  will  govern  herself,  that 
all  the  European  nations  will  admire  us  and  perhaps 
follow  our  example,  that  it  is  the  coming  of  the  people, 
the  real  people,  which  is  not  corrupt  like  the  middle-class, 
and  which  .  .  .' 

"'That  is  enough,'  interrupted  the  eldest  Mile.  Andre 
drily.  "  '  I  hope,  Juliette,  that  you  will  keep  your  father's 
fine  notions  to  yourself.  I  forbid  you  to  speak  of  them 
here.' 

"  '  In  the  schoolroom,  mademoiselle  ?  ' 

"  '  In  the  schoolroom  and  in  the  playground.' 

"I  looked  Mile.  Andre  in  the  face,"  writes  Juliette.  I 
was  almost  as  tall  as  she ;  and  I  replied — 

" '  That,  mademoiselle,  I  can't  promise  you ;  for  there 
are  a  great  many  of  us  republicans  in  the  school,  and 
no  one  can  prevent  our  talking  about  the  Republic  and 
loving  it.' 

" '  But  France  has  not  accepted  your  Republic,'  replied 
the  youngest  Mile.  Andre,  Mile.  Sophie. 

"'It  will  accept  it,  mademoiselle,  because  this  time  the 
people  will  vote.'  " 

The  Miles.  Andre1  were  perplexed.  They  hesitated 
between  their  desire  to  shut  the  mouth  of  their  precocious 
and  self-assertive  pupil,  and  their  reluctance  to  be  hard 
on  their  friend's  daughter,  and  also  to  annoy  the  republican 
parents  of  the  other  scholars. 

Finally  they  decided  to  bring  the  interview  to  a  close 
by  the  following  judicious  remark  :  "  When  you  see  your 
father,  Juliette,  you  may  tell  him  from  us  that  we  hope 
his  Republic  will  bring  peace  to  France  and  not  agitate 
it  further." 

On  coming  forth  from  the  mistresses'  presence,  Juliette 


HER  FIRST   REVOLUTION  25 

was,  of  course,  the  object  of  universal  interest  among  the 
scholars.  They  were  burning  to  know  what  had  passed 
in  the  principals'  sanctum.  But  they  could  not  satisfy 
their  curiosity  until  school  was  over.  The  lessons  that 
morning  were  not  well  known,  and  the  general  excuse 
was  the  Republic.  "  Mademoiselle,  I  have  not  had  time 
to  do  my  lessons  because  of  the  Republic." 

"  Mademoiselle,  I  couldn't  work  because  of  the  Republic." 
"  I  fail  to  understand,"  was  the  icy  retort,  "  how  the 
Republic  can  be  any  concern  of  yours." 

There  was  a  deep  silence,  and  then  a  voice — it  was 
Juliette's — made  answer. 

"  But,  mademoiselle,  it  interests  us  passionately." 
The  end  of  morning  school  was  a  regular  riot.  The 
pupils  rushed  out  into  the  playground,  where  they  sur- 
rounded Juliette,  in  a  crowd,  clamouring  to  receive  a  full 
account  of  her  famous  interview.  She,  on  her  part,  was 
only  too  eager  to  relate  it  in  every  detail,  and  to  follow 
it  by  an  appeal  to  her  comrades  to  bear  themselves  like 
true  and  worthy  republicans,  not  to  be  insolent  towards 
their  teachers,  but  to  make  them  realise  that,  although 
younger  than  they,  the  Republic  regarded  them  as  their 
elders'  equals.  Then  followed  a  babel  of  conversation.  Each 
schoolgirl  had  her  own  idea  of  what  the  Republic  should 
do.  But  all  were  agreed  that  the  first  reform  must  be 
the  establishment  of  universal  suffrage.  No  mere  tax- 
payers' franchise  would  satisfy  these  ardent  suffragettes. 
Every  one  must  vote,  men,  women,  and,  of  course,  school- 
girls. Only  thus  could  the  Miles.  Andre's  pupils  conceive  of 
a  really  universal  suffrage,  and  later  they  prided  themselves 
on  having  invented  it. 

Nothing  in  the  Revolution  pleased  Juliette's  father 
better  than  the  opening  of  the  National  Workshops.  An 
ardent  believer  in  the  right  to  work,  he,  with  his  idol, 
Louis  Blanc,  had  always  advocated  them.  And  though 
Louis  Blanc  did  not  appear  to  be  directly  concerned  with 
those  that  the  Government  was  establishing,  Dr.  Lambert, 
like  most  people,  believed  that  he  was  secretly  connected 
with  them.  They  had  not  been  running  more  than  a 
few  weeks,  however,  when  he  began  to  suspect  that  he 
had  been  mistaken.  As  time  went  on  he  grew  less  and 
less  satisfied  with  the  Republic.  There  were  too  many 
reactionaries  in  the  National  Assembly.     This  Republic, 


26  MADAME   ADAM 

from  which  he  had  hoped  so  much,  was  too  pleasing  to 
comfortable  middle-class  people  like  his  mother-in-law. 

"  Jean  Louis,"  she  would  say,  "  I  find  that  I  agree  very 
well  with  your  Republic."  "  Wait  a  little,"  her  son-in-law 
would  reply  at  first.  By  and  by  he  would  answer  :  "  You 
agree  with  it  better  than  I  do."  And  finally  there  came 
a  day  when  he  exclaimed  :  "  No  wonder  you  approve 
of  the  Republic,  for  it  is  constituted  for  your  advantage  ! 
The  Orleans  may  come  back  and  they  will  not  need  to 
alter  anything  as  far  as  their  bourgeois  supporters  are 
concerned."  x 

Seeing  his  dream  of  a  Christian,  classical,  social,  scien- 
tific Republic  vanish,  Dr.  Lambert  resumed  his  old  part 
of  malcontent,  and,  of  course,  Juliette  followed  suit.  She 
filled  the  house  with  her  recriminations.  She  made  her- 
self excessively  disagreeable  to  her  grandparents.  Her 
grandfather  infuriated  her  by  chuckling  with  delight  and 
repeating  :  "  All  this  augurs  well  for  the  Empire." 

That  which  most  distressed  Juliette  and  her  father  was 
the  failure  of  the  National  Workshops.  It  had  become 
obvious  that,  far  from  being  organised  by  Louis  Blanc, 
they  had  been  initiated  by  his  enemies.  Emile  Thomas, 
who  directed  them,  was  suspected  of  being  Louis  Napoleon's 
agent.  Far  from  constituting,  as  Dr.  Lambert  had  fondly 
dreamed,  a  national  benefit  and  a  model  for  the  whole 
civilised  world,  they  proved  useless  and  costly.  They 
grew  like  an  ulcer;  as  many  as  119,000  men  were  on  the 
pay-roll.  They  were  a  club  of  loafers,  a  reserve  army  of 
insurrection,  a  perpetual  strike  supported  out  of  public 
money.  No  wonder  there  was  talk  of  suppressing  them. 
But  Dr.  Lambert,  though  bitterly  disappointed  with  the 
way  they  were  conducted,  was  horrified  at  the  idea  of 
suddenly  depriving  of  occupation  and  turning  adrift  these 
thousands  of  workmen.  It  would  mean,  he  thought, 
nothing  short  of  a  sanguinary  revolution.  Juliette,  of 
course,  shared  her  father's  horror.  What  had  "  the 
people,"  "  the  people  "  who  had  behaved  so  admirably 
on  the  26th  of  February,  done  to  deserve  such  treacherous 
treatment?  She  could  think  of  nothing  else.  Her  rage 
and  disappointment  were  such  that  she  became  absolutely 
insupportable.  And  when  her  grandmother  remonstrated 
with  her,  she  implored  to  be  allowed  to  go  to  Blerancourt 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  295. 


HER   FIRST   REVOLUTION  27 

to  her  father,  who  shared  her  disappointment.  But  Mme. 
Seron  was  still  living  in  dread  of  her  son-in-law's  threat 
of  a  working-class  marriage  for  his  daughter.  She  had 
other  ideas  for  Juliette.     "  Already,"  she  told  her  little 

granddaughter,  "  you  have  pleased  young  X ,  who  is 

seventeen ;  and  his  father,  half  in  jest,  half  in  earnest, 
because  of  your  age,  has  suggested  that  in  a  few  years' 
time  there  might  be  an  alliance  between  the  families." 
Moreover,  Mme.  Seron  did  not  wish  again  to  interrupt 
her  daughter's  studies.  So  she  proposed  a  compromise. 
Instead  of  going  to  Blerancourt,  Juliette  might  become  a 
boarder  at  the  pension.1 

This  suggestion  was  a  terrible  blow  to  Juliette.  That 
such  a  proposal  should  come  from  her  grandmother,  that 
she,  who  generally  complained  of  the  length  of  the  school 
hours  which  deprived  her  of  her  idolised  granddaughter's 
company,  should  now  of  her  own  free  will  suggest  a  far 
longer  separation,  seemed  incredible.  The  child  was  quick 
to  see  that  her  own  behaviour  had  brought  her  grand- 
mother to  such  a  pass.  By  her  ravings  and  recriminations 
she  had  made  herself  intolerable.  Her  grandmother  was 
glad  to  get  rid  of  her. 

"  I  was  thunderstruck,"  she  writes.  "  Nothing  but 
wicked  pride  kept  me  from  throwing  myself  on  my  grand- 
mother's neck  and  asking  pardon  for  my  folly;  for  I 
realised    how    wild    and    extravagant    I    had    been.     But 

what  grandmother  had  told  me  about  X ,  a  tall  youth, 

whom  I  thought  both  handsome  and  clever,  had  so  puffed 
me  up  that  I  could  not  see  a  young  person  like  myself, 
close  upon  twelve,  kneeling  to  ask  forgiveness  like  a  little 
girl.  So,  though  my  heart  was  in  my  mouth  all  the 
while,  I  merely  said — 

"  *  Very  well,  grandmother,  it  is  understood,  I  will  be  a 
boarder  as  soon  as  you  like.' 

"  '  To-morrow,'  she  replied." 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  reflections  that  her  father's 
and  grandmother's  adoration  had  not,  as  it  might  well 
have  done,  completely  warped  their  idolised  Juliette's 
disposition.  They  had  made  her  absurdly  vain,  but  they 
had  not  stifled  a  certain  critical  sense  which  even  at  that 
early  age  the  little  girl  was  beginning  to  turn  upon  her- 
self. In  this  wholesome  exercise  she  was  encouraged  by 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  300. 


28  MADAME  ADAM 

her  mother's  severity.  Whenever  her  father  praised,  her 
mother  scolded. 

"  When  father,"  she  writes,  "  spoke  of  my  intelligence 
and  my  good  looks,  mother  declared  that  I  was  as  stupid 
as  I  was  plain.  It  seemed  to  me  that  both  of  them 
exaggerated.  And  I  began  to  judge  myself,  as  I  have 
done  ever  since,  with  a  certain  detachment.  At  heart  I 
am  really  grateful  to  my  mother  for  having  preserved  me 
from  complete  self-satisfaction."  x 

Juliette's  career  as  a  boarding-school  miss,  which 
resulted  from  her  enthusiasm  for  and  her  disappointment 
with  the  scheme  of  National  Workshops,  was  destined  to 
be  as  short-lived  as  that  great  national  experiment. 

It  was  bad  enough  to  be  un  enfant  gate  removed  from 
her  fond  relatives  and  subjected  to  all  the  rules  of  an 
institution.  But  her  personal  sorrows  were  intensified  by 
the  thought  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  workpeople  about 
to  be  threatened  with  starvation.  By  this  apprehension 
Juliette's  schoolfellows  were  likewise  depressed.  An  atmo- 
sphere of  gloom  pervaded  the  playground.  Instead  of 
playing  games,  the  girls  gathered  together  to  discuss  the 
fate  of  their  unfortunate  compatriots.  "  There  was  not 
one  of  us,"  Juliette  writes,  "  who  did  not  deny  herself 
goodies  in  order  to  save  a  few  pence  with  which  to  help 
these  poor  people.  We  were  always  counting  up  our 
resources.  We  thought  we  might  just  be  able  to  feed  one 
of  them.  I  decided  that  we  would  address  an  elegant 
epistle  to  the  minister  Trelat,2  whom  we  abhorred.  For 
him  we  held  responsible  for  everything.  We  would  pro- 
pose to  him  to  undertake  the  support  of  one  of  the  workmen 
from  the  National  Workshops.  Certainly  one  out  of  a 
hundred  thousand  (sic) 3  was  not  much ;  but  if  every 
pension  did  the  same,  some  would  be  saved  in  any  case."  4 

The   composition   of  such   a  letter  was   not   easy.     In 

1  Souvenirs,  I.  348. 

8  Trelat,  Minister  of  Education,  so  Dr.  Lambert  had  told  Juliette, 
had  been  one  of  the  bitterest  opponents  of  the  National  Workshops. 
But,  seeing  the  danger  of  closing  them  suddenly,  he  had  proposed  to 
dismiss  the  workmen  gradually,  and  he  had  appointed  his  son-in-law, 
Lalanne,  to  reorganise  the  whole  movement.  But  it  was  too  late. — 
Souvenirs,  I.  298-9. 

3  Nineteen  hundred  thousand  is  the  number  given  by  Professor  Guerard. 
— French  Civilisation  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  201. 

*  Souvenirs,  I.  305. 


HER  FIRST  REVOLUTION  29 

order  to  bring  to  bear  upon  it  as  much  intelligence  as 
possible,  the  republican  scholars  classified  themselves  in 
groups,  eleven  in  all.  Each  group  drew  up  a  draft  of  the 
letter.  These  drafts  were  compared,  the  best  passages 
selected  from  each,  and  finally  the  letter  was  dispatched 
to  a  friend  of  Juliette  in  Paris,  that  same  Professor  Charles 
who  had  embraced  her  on  her  fourth  birthday.  He  was 
now  a  public  functionary,  and  he  was  requested  to  deliver 
to  the  minister  the  all-important  missive. 

"  Daily,"  records  Juliette,  "  we  expected  the  arrival  of 
our  protegee,  our  atelier  national,  as  we  called  him.  He 
had  been  instructed  by  the  famous  letter  to  present  him- 
self at  the  Pensionnat  Andre,  and  to  announce  himself  as 
Juliette  Lambert's  protegee.  His  benefactresses  mean- 
while were  busily  preparing  for  his  arrival.  Cakes  and 
sweetmeats  were  tabooed.  "  Nous  economisions  avec 
frenesie"  writes  Juliette.  They  also,  under  every  imagin- 
able pretext,  begged  from  their  friends  and  relatives. 

One  of  them  had  been  so  fortunate  as  to  obtain  a  suit 
of  clothes  belonging  to  her  brother.  Having  cleaned  and 
mended  it  with  the  greatest  care,  she  kept  it  in  readiness 
for  the  atelier  national,  who  would  doubtless  arrive  in  rags. 

Meanwhile  the  plot  was  kept  a  dead  secret;  for  the 
conspirators  were  well  aware  that  their  sympathy  for 
ces  monstres  des  ateliers  nationaux  would  meet  with  no 
encouragement  at  home. 

While  at  Chauny  the  Miles.  Andre's  pupils  were  eagerly 
awaiting  the  arrival  of  their  expected  monstre,  at  Paris 
affairs  were  moving  quickly.  The  men  who  had  been 
paid  forty  cents  a  day  for  digging  trenches  in  the  Champs 
de  Mars  and  filling  them  up  again  were  sticking  to  their 
job  in  defiance  of  the  Government's  orders  to  disband. 
The  Socialists  sympathised  with  them  and  organised  street 
manifestations  in  their  favour.  Finally,  on  the  23rd  of 
June,  the  capital  broke  out  into  open  insurrection.  It 
was  at  this  juncture  that  Juliette  received,  not  the  eagerly 
expected  atelier  national,  but  a  letter  from  Professor  Charles 
which  dashed  all  her  hopes  to  the  ground.  He,  to  whom 
had  been  entrusted  that  elegant  epistle  to  the  minister, 
had  basely  deserted  the  young  friends  who  had  confided 
in  him.  Professor  Charles  had  no  sympathy  with  the 
State-employed  workmen ;  he  described  them  in  his  letter 
to  Juliette  as  ces  miserables  qui  t' inter essent.     Charles  was 


30  MADAME   ADAM 

immediately  banished  from  Juliette's  heart.  Her  ex-ami 
Charles,  she  called  him,  severely,  when  she  announced  to 
her  comrades  this  terrible  disappointment. 

Then  there  followed  much  secret  confabulation  among 
the  Republican  groups  of  the  pension.  The  pupils  agreed 
that  while  blood  was  flowing  in  the  streets  of  Paris,  they 
at  Chauny  could  not  remain  inactive.  Already  the  revolu- 
tion in  the  capital  was  finding  an  echo  in  the  provincial 
town.  Bands  of  rebels  were  marching  down  the  streets. 
Why  should  not  les  demoiselles  de  la  pension  Andre  join 
them?  Juliette  counted  among  her  treasures  a  large 
handkerchief  given  her  by  her  father  and  emblazoned 
with  the  words :  Vive  la  Republique,  Democratique  et 
Sociale.  Attaching  this  emblem  to  a  pole  abstracted  from 
the  wood-shed,  the  girls,  under  Juliette's  leadership, 
organised  themselves  into  a  procession  and  marched 
round  the  playground,  crying :  "  Long  live  the  Demo- 
cratic and  Social  Republic.  Long  live  the  rebels.  We 
will  not  disband.     We  will  not  disband." 

This  manifestation,  the  tumultuous  scenes  to  which 
it  led,  the  defiant  words  which  she  addressed  to  her 
governesses,  resulted  in  Juliette's  expulsion  from  school. 
For  the  Miles.  Andre  rightly  regarded  her  as  the  leader 
of  the  revolution. 

Mile.  Sophie  conducted  her  back  to  her  grandmother's 
house.  Mme.  Seron  was  already  regretting  having  sent 
her  granddaughter  away.  She  would,  therefore,  have 
been  glad  to  see  her  back  under  almost  any  circumstances. 
But  to  find  her  distinguishing  herself  as  the  originator  and 
ringleader  of  a  rebellion  gratified  the  pride  and  ambition 
of  her  own  rebellious  heart.  So,  after  listening  to  Mile. 
Sophie's  story,  Mme.  Seron  said  with  dignity  :  "If  you 
regard  her  behaviour  as  a  defiance  of  your  authority,  then 
you  are  quite  right  to  dismiss  her.  .  .  .  But  this  episode 
shows  me  Juliette  as  I  like  to  see  her,  displaying  a  deter- 
mination and  a  courage  such  as  are  not  given  to  every 
one.  Since,  without  my  seeking  her,  the  child  has  been 
brought  back  to  me,  neither  she  nor  I  will  be  distressed. 
I  have  rather,  mademoiselle,  to  thank  you  than  to  ask 
you  to  reconsider  your  decision." 

Thus  after  a  few  weeks  terminated  Juliette's  career  as 
a  boarder,  and,  indeed,  her  schooldays,  for  she  never 
returned  to  the  pension. 


HER   FIRST   REVOLUTION  31 

At  Chivres,  whither,  on  the  1st  of  July,  Juliette  went 
for  a  three  months'  visit,  she  found  herself  promptly 
deposed  from  the  pedestal  on  to  which,  as  a  reward  for 
her  defiance  of  authority,  her  grandmother  and  her  father, 
too,  had  elevated  her.  The  aunts  had  never  heard  of 
such  nonsense ;  they  scolded  her  roundly  for  her  conduct. 
They  had  no  sympathy  whatever  with  the  ateliers 
nationaux.  And,  during  the  violent  suppression  of  the 
rising  which  followed,  their  sympathies  were  entirely  with 
the  bourgeoisie.  Juliette  was  condemned  to  keep  her 
opinions  to  herself,  and  even  to  read  the  newspaper  by 
stealth.  Instead  of  arguing  about  things  she  did  not 
understand,  she  worked  hard  at  her  Latin.  And  in  the 
serenity  of  her  aunts'  presence,  contrasting  with  their 
educated  minds  her  own  empty  little  head,  she  came  to 
see  herself  as  she  really  was  :  a  pretentious  young  person, 
very  ignorant,  and  fond  of  airing  opinions  she  had  borrowed 
from  other  people. 

Consequently  it  was  in  a  chastened  frame  of  mind  that 
Juliette  returned  in  the  autumn  to  Chauny.  And  her 
grandmother  found  her  quite  willing  to  fall  in  with  the 
new  scheme  of  life  which  she  suggested.  The  storms  of 
the  past  had  strengthened  Mme.  Seron's  conviction  that 
Juliette  was  a  child  to  be  led  and  not  driven.  In  broach- 
ing the  subject  of  her  future  studies,  therefore,  Mme.  Seron 
began  with  this  tactful  observation — 

Now,  my  Juliette,  you  will  do  exactly  as  you  like. 
You  will  learn  what  you  wish,  or  you  will,  if  you  prefer 
it,  learn  nothing  at  all.  But  there  is  one  thing  in  which 
I  do  ask  you  to  take  an  interest :  that  is  housekeeping. 
I  will  give  you  complete  charge  of  our  house  for  six  months. 
You  shall  be  its  mistress  to  order  and  to  spend.  I  shall 
merely  advise  you.  As  you  are  fond  of  the  appointing, 
the  arrangement,  the  decoration  of  a  home,  you  will  have 
full  scope  for  the  development  of  your  taste.  If  you 
would  like  lessons  in  cooking  and  sewing,  you  have  only 
to  say  so.  I  want  to  persuade  you,  too,  that  an  art,  and 
above  all  arts,  music,  embellishes  life.  The  new  organist 
is  a  remarkably  good  teacher.  The  piano  bores  you,  but 
I  wish  you  to  cultivate  your  voice.  And  then  I  have 
another  wish  :  I  want  you  to  try  the  violin.  But,  I 
repeat,  you  shall  do  as  you  like  in  everything."  1 
x  Souvenirs,  I.  325. 


32  MADAME  ADAM 

To  these  diplomatic  suggestions  Juliette  was  graciously 
pleased  to  reply — 

"  Grandmother,  I  shall  be  delighted  to  keep  house ;  it 
will  be  very  interesting.  I  will  certainly  learn  the  violin. 
That  will  be  quite  out  of  the  common  :  and  I  will  cultivate 
my  voice." 

How  the  Seron  household  fared  during  the  regime  of 
this  young  lady  of  twelve  Juliette  has  not  told  us.  But 
that  her  grandmother's  somewhat  bold  experiment  was 
in  the  end  eminently  successful  is  attested  by  the  fact 
that  throughout  her  long  life  Mme.  Adam  has  been  re- 
nowned as  a  first-rate  maitresse  de  maison  ;  and  that  this 
reputation  is  fully  justified  is  the  experience  of  all  those 
who,  like  the  present  writer,  have  partaken  of  her  lavish 
hospitality. 

As  for  the  rest  of  her  studies,  Mme.  Seron  had  been 
well  advised  to  leave  it  to  her  granddaughter  to  decide 
as  to  whether  she  would  continue  them.  Juliette  was  far 
too  ambitious  to  be  content  with  her  very  meagre  know- 
ledge. And  it  was  at  her  own  suggestion  that  her  father 
was  asked  to  draw  up  a  time-table  for  his  daughter. 

A  professor  from  the  boys'  school  opposite  was  engaged 
to  give  her  lessons ;  and  Dr.  Lambert  himself,  when  he 
came  to  Chauny,  superintended  her  studies.  He  read  her 
Racine,  and  persuaded  her  to  copy  daily  five  pages  from 
the  pen  of  that  great  French  classic.  The  doctor,  as 
we  have  said,  was  himself  a  pure  classicist.  He  used 
to  say  to  his  daughter,  "  Be  a  Grecian,  Juliette,  if  you 
desire  initiation  into  the  worship  of  the  eternally  beautiful, 
into  all  that  raises  man  above  the  age  in  which  he 
lives."  1 

In  order  to  accustom  his  daughter  to  what  he  called  the 
admirable  sonority  of  notre  langue  initiatrice  he  read  her 
passages  from  Homer  in  the  Greek  original.  He  dictated 
to  her  word  by  word  translations  of  whole  chapters  of  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  In  these  lessons,  in  his  own  read- 
ing and  in  his  talks  with  Juliette,  Dr.  Lambert  found  con- 
solation for  his  bitter  political  disillusionment.  "  Books," 
he  would  say,  "  are  our  greatest  solace,  when  everything 
else  is  taken  from  us  they  remain."  2 

He  refused  to  talk  of  politics.  The  collapse  of  the  June 
insurrection,  its  brutal  suppression  by  General  Cavaignac, 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  317.  2  Ibid.,  326. 


HER  FIRST   REVOLUTION  33 

and,  finally,  the  election  on  the  10th  of  December,  1848, 
of  his  enemy,  Louis  Napoleon,  as  President  of  the  Republic 
had  disappointed  all  his  hopes. 

In  the  glorious  days  of  the  Republic's  dawn  Dr.  Lambert 
had  consented  to  be  Mayor  of  Blerancourt.  His  daughter 
describes  how  she  and  her  grandmother  came  over  from 
Chauny  to  see  the  Mayor,  attired  in  a  workman's  blue 
blouse  and  wearing  the  tricolour  scarf  tied  with  red,  plant 
the  Tree  of  Liberty,  a  young  poplar,  in  the  village  square. 
In  his  delight  at  what  seemed  to  promise  the  realisation 
of  all  his  dreams,  this  agnostic  had  become  reconciled  even 
to  the  cure.  The  village  priest  was  present  to  bless  the 
Tree  of  Liberty.  And  in  his  speech  this  broad-minded 
cleric  declared  that  the  Republic,  if  it  practised  its  doc- 
trines of  liberty,  fraternity  and  equality,  would  realise 
the  gospel  ideal,  but  that  it  could  only  rise  to  such  a 
height  provided  that  all  republicans  in  spirit,  if  not  in 
form,  were  as  Christian  as  the  new  Mayor.  Then,  much 
to  his  daughter's  astonishment,  Dr.  Lambert  replied  that 
the  Republic,  with  its  principles  of  liberty,  equality  and 
fraternity,  had  without  doubt  originated  in  Christianity ; 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  first  Socialist  and  the  first  Repub- 
lican ;  that  republicans  had  much  to  learn  from  the  Church, 
but  that  the  Church  on  its  side  had  to  learn  from  repub- 
licans to  adore  nature  and  to  follow  science.  "  My  dear 
Mayor,"  said  M.  le  Cure  after  the  ceremony,  "  you  would 
accept  the  Christian  religion  blindfold  if  only  it  would 
consent  to  become  pagan."  "  Yes,"  replied  the  Mayor, 
laughing,  "  but  I  want  you  in  return  to  accept  my  paganism, 
which  is  founded  on  a  love  of  nature,  on  condition  that  it 
is  inspired  by  Christian  virtues." 

Alas  !  only  a  few  months  later  that  roseate  dawn  of 
optimistic  idealism  had  faded  into  the  night  of  grim 
reaction.  One  by  one  the  socialistic  experiments  of  1848 
had  failed.  The  socialist  leader,  Louis  Blanc,  had  been 
discredited  and  driven  into  exile.  The  more  moderate 
Ledru-Rollin,  having,  like  most  moderates,  failed  to  please 
any  party,  had  been  excluded  from  the  Government. 
And  by  the  end  of  the  year,  after  all  her  bright  dreams  of 
liberty,  the  one  cry  which  went  up  from  France  was  for  a 
strong  government.  The  cry  was  answered  by  Louis 
Napoleon's  election  to  the  presidency.  Old  Dr.  Seron's 
prophecy  had  come  true.     Encouraged  by  the  success  of 

D 


34  MADAME   ADAM 

his  divinations,  Juliette's  grandfather  continued  to  prog- 
nosticate. "  Sure  as  my  name  is  Seron,"  he  declared, 
"  Louis  Napoleon  Buonaparte,  from  simple  Prince  Louis, 
from  simple  Buonaparte,  will,  before  the  expiration  of  his 
presidency,  become  Emperor  Napoleon  III."  * 

"  Alas  !  he  is  right,"  said  Dr.  Lambert.2  ..."  All  my 
beautiful  fabric  has  fallen,  stone  by  stone;  and  I  am 
crushed  beneath  its  ruins.  .  .  .  Juliette,  I  shall  never 
again  talk  or  write  to  you  of  politics."  But,  though 
abstaining  from  political  talk,  Dr.  Lambert  could  not 
withdraw  from  interest  in  political  affairs.  Though  he 
had  resigned  his  mayoralty,  though  he  had  severed  all 
official  connection  with  this  sad  travesty  of  a  Republic, 
though  the  Tree  of  Liberty  which  he  had  planted  had 
been  dug  up,  he  still  clung  to  the  vestige  of  his  political 
dreams.  And  he  continued  to  try  to  carve  out  a  new 
destiny  for  France.  If  he  could  not  work  for  her  in  the 
open,  he  would  plot  and  plan  in  secret.  Dr.  Lambert, 
like  many  another  disillusioned  French  republican,  joined 
one  of  those  secret  societies  which  were  being  formed 
all  over  France.  Juliette,  when  she  next  visited  Bleran- 
court,  found  her  parents'  home  the  centre  of  mysterious 
meetings,  her  father  the  recipient  of  mysterious  corre- 
spondence which  his  wife  urged  him  to  destroy.  One 
day,  rummaging  in  the  attic,  Juliette  chanced  upon  a 
hoard  of  papers,  lists  of  names  and  letters,  the  import  of 
which,  enlightened  by  her  parents'  conversation,  she  was 
quick  to  guess;  and  instantly  there  flashed  on  her  vivid 
imagination  the  whole  danger  of  the  situation.  With 
Juliette  Adam  action  has  never  failed  to  follow  swiftly 
upon  the  heels  of  thought.  An  hour  or  two  after  that 
discovery  Juliette  was  busy  making  herself  a  big  pocket, 
which  she  tied  round  her  waist  and  wore  beneath  her 
frock.  In  a  day  or  two  that  which  she  dreaded  happened. 
Dr.  Lambert's  house  was  visited  by  the  Procureur  de  la 
Republique,  accompanied  by  an  escort  of  gendarmes.  To 
the  dismay  of  Juliette's  parents  the  Procureur  produced 
a  document  entitling  him  to  search  the  house.  He  began 
with  the  doctor's  desk  in  the  room  where  the  family  was 
then  sitting  at  lunch. 

"  What  you  are  doing  is  not  at  all  nice.  It  is  even 
indiscreet,"  said  Juliette,  much  to  the  functionary's 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  328.  2  Ibid.,  329. 


HER  FIRST   REVOLUTION  35 

amusement.  It  was  a  sultry  midsummer  day.  Said 
Juliette  to  her  terrified  mother  :  "  May  I  not  go  and  tell 
Blatier "  (the  gardener,  who,  with  a  scared  look,  was 
peeping  through  the  window)  "  to  cool  some  cider  for 
these  gentlemen?  "  Mme.  Lambert  made  a  sign  of  assent. 
A  minute  before,  when  she  had  wished  to  go  into  another 
room,  a  gendarme  had  prevented  her.  But  no  objection 
was  offered  to  her  little  girl's  departure.  All  the  while, 
however,  that  she  was  telling  Blatier  to  draw  water  from 
the  well  she  felt  a  gendarme's  eyes  fixed  upon  her  through 
the  window.  While  the  gardener  was  drawing  the  water, 
she  went  down  into  the  cellar,  brought  up  some  bottles, 
placed  them  in  a  pail.  Intentionally  prolonging  the 
operation,  she  went  down  to  fetch  another  pail,  then, 
turning  round,  made  as  if  she  would  return  slowly  to  the 
room.  But  no  sooner  was  she  out  of  the  gendarme's 
sight  than  with  one  bound,  having  taken  off  her  shoes,  she 
flew  upstairs  to  the  attic,  seized  the  papers,  slipped  them 
into  her  pocket,  and  in  a  trice  had  put  on  her  shoes  again, 
was  back  in  the  sitting-room,  having  apparently  come 
straight  from  her  cider-cooling  in  the  courtyard.  M.  le 
Procureur  was  still  busily  searching.  Having  examined 
the  living-rooms,  he  and  his  escort  searched  the  stable, 
the  coach-house,  the  cellar.  Then,  leaving  one  gendarme 
below,  he  went  up  into  the  attic. 

"  When  father  heard  them  go  upstairs,"  writes  Julietter 
"  he  rose,  he  looked  very  agitated,  and  I  saw  mothe, 
saying  to  herself :  '  The  papers  must  be  there ;  we  are 
lost.' 

"  Then,  taking  a  glass  of  cider,  I  went  up  to  father, 
whom  the  gendarme  was  closely  observing.  He  put  away 
the  glass  I  offered  him,  but  I,  as  if  persuading  him  to 
drink,  bent  towards  him  and  whispered  :  '  Be  calm.  I 
have  the  papers.'  Father  drank  the  glass  of  cider  at  one 
gulp.  I  embraced  him.  The  gendarme  was  touched  by 
our  affection.  Father  clasped  x  me  in  his  arms  so  tight 
that  I  thought  I  should  have  been  stifled  !  .  .  ." 

The  Procureur  de  la  Republique  came  downstairs. 
Before  leaving  he  said  to  Juliette  :  "  Mademoiselle,  I  am 
glad  to  tell  you  that  we  have  found  nothing  to  com- 
promise your  father.  Had  we  discovered  proofs  of  the 
matters  of  which  he  stands  accused  it  would  have  been 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  227. 


36  MADAME   ADAM 

serious.  For  your  father's  name  figures  on  the  list  of 
those  liable  to  arrest,  imprisonment,  or  even  deportation. 
He  is  reputed  a  dangerous  revolutionary  and  propagandist 
to  boot." 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  replied  Juliette.  "  As  you  are  so 
fatherly  to  me,  you,  too,  must  have  a  daughter."  The 
Procureur  smiled,  but  did  not  reply. 

For  the  time,  this  child  of  thirteen  had  saved  her  father's 
liberty,  perhaps  his  life.  But  she  had  not  placed  him  out 
of  danger,  because  she  had  not  cured  him  of  plotting 
against  the  Government.  Henceforth,  indeed,  until  Dr. 
Lambert's  death,  his  daughter  was  to  live  in  constant 
dread  of  her  father's  so  embroiling  himself  with  the 
authorities  as  to  be  clapped  into  prison  or  even  deported. 
The  episode  we  have  just  related  was  only  the  first  of 
many  times  when  he  narrowly  escaped  arrest.  When, 
years  later,  Juliette  was  living  with  her  father  in  Paris 
and  he  was  late  in  returning  to  meals,  she  always  expected 
to  hear  that  he  was  in  prison. 

Not  long  after  this  domiciliary  visit,  in  the  spring  of 
1850,  Dr.  Lambert  entertained  the  idea  of  giving  up  his 
practice  at  Blerancourt,  and  joining  one  of  the  phalan- 
steries or  socialistic  communities  then  in  vogue.  How- 
ever, he  listened  to  the  entreaties  of  his  family  and 
renounced  this  project. 

"  Juliette,"  said  Mme.  Seron  to  her  granddaughter, 
"  how  can  you  wish  a  country  to  be  led  by  persons  so 
wild  as  your  father?"  "And,  for  the  moment,"  writes 
Juliette,  "  I  agreed  with  her." 


CHAPTER  IV 

FIRST   MARRIAGE    AND    PARIS 

1849—1858 

"  Jt  wis  devenir  quelqu'un.  JHrai  a  Paris.1' — Mme.  Adam,  Roman  de 
mon  Enfance. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  events  recorded  in  the  last 
chapter  that  Juliette  at  thirteen  was  both  mentally  and 
morally  much  more  developed  than  a  young  English  girl 
of  eighteen  or  even  twenty.  Children  in  France,  largely 
because  they  associate  constantly  with  their  elders  instead 
of  being  relegated  to  the  nursery,  grow  up  more  quickly 
than  in  England.  A  little  French  girl  often  is  quite  a 
little  woman.  She  will  go  with  her  mother  to  pay  calls, 
and  at  home  help  her  mother  to  entertain  visitors.  The 
system  in  vogue  in  Juliette's  childhood  of  marrying  girls 
at  fifteen  or  sixteen  naturally  favoured  their  early  develop- 
ment. The  early  marriage  was  the  outcome  of  the  mariage 
de  convenance,  which  was  more  general  in  Juliette's  youth 
than  now.  When  marriages  were  arranged  by  the  family 
it  was  unnecessary  to  wait  until  the  young  people,  the  bride 
at  any  rate,  was  old  enough  to  choose  wisely  for  herself. 
Though  it  would  not  have  been  admitted  that  girls  were 
married  against  their  will,  though  their  consent  to  the 
marriage  was  generally  asked,  not  by  the  aspirant,  usually, 
but  by  the  girls'  parents,  it  was  a  mere  matter  of  form, 
everything  having  been  settled  beforehand.  Moreover, 
the  girl  in  question,  when  appealed  to  in  this  perfunctory 
manner,  was  not  encouraged  to  consult  her  heart.  Indeed, 
that  very  uncertain  and  awkward  factor  is  not  supposed 
to  intervene  in  what  is  known  as  the  real  French  marriage. 
It  is  essentially  a  business  affair,  a  matter  of  social  position 
and  of  pounds,  shillings  and  pence.  We  shall  find,  for 
instance,  that  in  arranging  a  marriage  for  her  grand- 
daughter, Mme.  Seron's  chief  concern  was  that  Juliette 

37 


38  MADAME   ADAM 

should  have  an  establishment  in  Paris.  This,  in  the  first 
place,  would  give  her  an  opportunity  of  displaying  to  full 
advantage  her  many  gifts,  and,  secondly,  would  enable  her 
fond  grandmother  to  shine  in  metropolitan  circles,  for 
Mme.  Seron  hoped  to  make  some  arrangement  whereby 
she  could  for  a  considerable  part  of  the  year  reside  with 
her  granddaughter. 

Juliette  was  not  married  until  she  was  sixteen.  But, 
as  we  have  seen,  no  sooner  had  she  entered  her  teens  than 
her  grandmother  and  father  began — in  divergent  directions, 
of  course — to  make  plans  for  her  alliance. 

It   was    about    this   time,   that   the   parents   of   young 

X ,  a  youth  of   seventeen,   proposed  to  Mme.   Seron 

that  in  a  few  years  he  should  marry  Juliette.  The  follow- 
ing year  brought  a  renewal  of  this  proposal  and  also 
a  second  offer  of  marriage  from  another  quarter.  Dr. 
Lambert  refused  to  listen  to  either  of  these  requests  for 
his  daughter's  hand.  His  persistence  in  his  idea  of  a 
working-class  marriage  for  his  daughter  drove  his  mother- 
in-law  into  a  frenzy  and  produced  another  drame  defamille. 
Mme.  Seron  threatened  her  son-in-law  with  the  gendarmes 
if  he  attempted  to  carry  out  his  nefarious  scheme.  Dr. 
Lambert  threatened  to  take  Juliette  abroad  out  of  her 
grandmother's  reach.  But  in  the  end  Mme.  Seron  con- 
quered, and  Dr.  Lambert  went  off  in  a  towering  rage. 
For  several  months  he  ceased  to  visit  Chauny. 

Juliette,  who  had  now  grown  into  a  handsome  girl, 
had  already  attracted  considerable  attention  at  Chauny. 
Those  who  are  privileged  to  know  her  now,  in  her  declining 
years,  can  see  how  lovely  she  must  have  been  in  her  youth. 
"  She  has  had  that  singular  good  fortune  .  .  .,"  writes 
one  of  her  friends  to-day,  "  to  have  been  adorably 
beautiful  (adorablement  belle)."  x  The  delicately  moulded 
features,  the  animated  expression,  the  satirical  glance,  the 
dignified  bearing,  the  vivacious  manner,  which  at  eighty 
never  fail  to  charm,  must  have  indeed  been  dazzling  in 
her  far-off  girlhood.  In  a  word,  Juliette  Lambert  was  as 
gifted  physically  as  mentally.  No  wonder  that  when, 
wearing  a  pretty  blonde  cap  with  pink  roses,  and  escorted 
by  her  grandfather  and  an  old  friend,  Blondeau,  who  lived 
in  the  same  house,  she  made  her  first  appearance  at  the 
Chauny  theatre,  there  was  quite  a  sensation,  although 
1  L^on^Daudet,  UEntre-Deux-Guerres,  235  (1915). 


FIRST  MARRIAGE  AND  PARIS  39 

when  she  returned  her  grandmother  had  to  scold  her  for 
having  marred  her  beauty  by  weeping  over  the  play. 

The  quarrel  between  Mme.  Seron  and  her  son-in-law 
having  died  down,  Juliette  was  permitted  to  spend  the 
Christmas  of  1850,  and  to  stay  on  into  the  New  Year,  at 
Blerancourt. 

It  was  during  this  visit  that  she  made  the  acquaintance 
of  the  man  who  was  to  be  her  first  husband.  She  was 
told  one  day  that  her  father  expected  a  friend  to  lunch, 
that  the  guest  was  an  advanced  republican  and  a  Comtist 
to  boot.  This  was  the  first  time  that  Juliette  had  heard 
that  name  of  Comte,  which  she  was  to  learn  to  know  only 
too  well  later.  The  guest  came.  He  was  a  barrister 
(avocat)  at  the  Paris  Court  of  Appeal.  But  he  lived  at 
Soissons,  where  he  was  conducting  a  series  of  law-suits 
on  behalf  of  an  aunt.  His  name  was  Lamessine.  He  was 
of  the  south  Italian  type,  with  dark  eyes,  olive  skin  and 
shining  black  hair,  for  his  grandfather  had  been  a  Sicilian 
who  had  settled  in  France  and  been  naturalised  during  the 
Revolution.  Dr.  Lambert's  visitor  was  reputed  a  man  of 
talent.  His  brilliant  conversation  pleased  Juliette;  but 
she  detested  the  scepticism  which  led  him  to  maintain 
that  good  is  merely  the  necessary  balance  to  evil,  and  that 
society  must  grow  increasingly  corrupt  until  it  produces 
a  new  "  vegetation."  Against  such  doctrines  Juliette  could 
not  refrain  from  protesting.  There  was  an  animated 
discussion  between  the  Sicilian,  who  believed  in  nothing, 
and  his  host's  idealist  daughter,  who  was  ready  to  believe 
in  everything  that  was  good.  The  guest  departed  with 
the  words,  "  And  I  hope  you  bear  me  no  grudge,  Mademoi- 
selle la  Batailleuse."  "  I  only  pray,"  she  replied,  "  that 
Heaven  may  reveal  to  you  some  knowledge,  however 
slight,  of  the  good  and  the  beautiful."  x 

In  the  spring,  while  Juliette  was  visiting  her  aunts, 
M.  Lamessine  came  to  Chivres.  There,  though  he  found 
La  Batailleuse  more  charming  than  ever  in  her  peasant's 
costume,  which  by  clever  contrivances  and  adaptations 
she  had  learnt  to  make  extremely  becoming,  he  met  with 
a  cold  welcome  from  the  aunts  and  was  not  encouraged  to 
return.  In  June,  however,  while  Juliette  was  at  Bleran- 
court, he  came  to  see  her  again.  Political  affairs  were 
moving  towards  Napoleon's  December  coup  d'etat  and  the 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  353. 


40  MADAME  ADAM 

empire  which  Dr.  Seron  had  so  persistently  prophesied. 
There  was  a  mysterious  meeting  at  Dr.  Lambert's.  And 
the  next  day  Juliette's  father  said  to  her,  "  The  crisis  is 
grave ;  but  we  have  with  us  a  man  in  whose  veins  flows  the 
blood  of  the  carbonari.  He  will  do  something."  That 
man  was  M.  Lamessine. 

In  December  the  barrister  came  to  plead  at  Chauny. 
He  presented  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Dr.  and  Mme. 
Seron.  They,  unlike  the  aunts,  received  him  most  cordi- 
ally. Having  been  invited  to  dinner,  he  told  Juliette  that, 
influenced  by  her  arguments  he  had  become  less  sceptical. 
She  did  not  believe  him.  She  was  vaguely  conscious  of 
some  ulterior  motive  in  his  words.  She  felt  ill  at  ease  and 
left  the  salon  early.  On  the  morrow  her  grandmother 
announced  that  M.  Lamessine  had  asked  for  her  hand  in 
marriage,  that  his  treatment  of  the  important  matter  of 
settlements  was  satisfactory,  and  that  he  was  willing 
for  Mme.  Seron  to  spend  every  winter  with  her  grand- 
daughter and  her  husband  when  they  should  go  to  live  in 
Paris. 

But  Juliette  was  not  the  kind  of  young  person  thus  to 
be  married  out  of  hand  and  merely  to  please  her  grand- 
mother. She  was  thunderstruck  at  such  an  announce- 
ment. She  would  not  dream,  she  protested,  of  marrying 
a  man  who  was  twice  her  age.  In  vain  did  Mme.  Seron 
plead  that  M.  Lamessine  was  tres  Men,  that  his  coming  was 
providential,  that  resembling  feature  for  feature  one  of  the 
heroes  of  her  favourite  novelist  Balzac,  he  could  not  fail 
to  be  the  most  suitable  of  husbands.  "  You  must  admit 
that  I  am  right,  Juliette,"  she  said,  and  forthwith  she  took 
down  the  volume  in  question  and  read  the  description. 
But  even  this  striking  likeness  failed  to  reconcile  her 
recalcitrant  granddaughter  to  the  match.  Juliette  ap- 
pealed to  her  grandfather  and  to  her  old  friend  Blondeau, 
to  save  her  from  so  uncongenial  a  mating,  but  to  no  pur- 
pose, for  Mme.  Seron  had  already  won  them  over  to  her 
side.  There  was,  however,  one  member  of  the  family  who 
would  be  less  easy  to  convince.  And  Juliette,  as  was  her 
custom,  called  in  Blerancourt  to  redress  the  balance  at 
Chauny.  Dr.  Lambert,  knowing  more  about  the  proposed 
bridegroom  than  his  mother-in-law,  was  horrified  at  the 
idea  of  his  marrying  his  daughter.  A  few  days  later  when 
he  and  his  wife  came  over  to  Chauny,  he  was  aghast  to 


FIRST  MARRIAGE  AND  PARIS  41 

find  how  far  things  had  gone.  He  would,  he  declared, 
never  give  his  consent  to  the  marriage. 

Throughout  the  succeeding  months  there  followed  a 
long-drawn-out  war  of  words,  enlivened  by  perpetual  drames 
de  famille.  At  one  time  Juliette  was  forcibly  carried  off 
by  her  father  to  Blerancourt,  then  brought  back  to  Chauny 
by  her  mother,  who  desired  the  match  and  kept  her  at 
Chauny  out  of  her  father's  influence.  He,  unhappy  man, 
worn  out  by  domestic  grief  and  political  disappointment, 
fell  ill,  and  during  his  illness  once  again  narrowly  escaped 
arrest.  Finally,  his  wife  and  mother-in-law  broke  down  his 
resistance.  By  their  importunity  they  had  rendered  his 
life  unbearable.  In  a  moment  of  passion  he  seems  to  have 
said  :  "  Very  well,  do  what  you  will,"  then  to  have  given 
his  formal  consent,  without  which  they  could  do  nothing, 
and  to  have  signed  the  fatal  document  which  sealed 
Juliette's  unhappiness.  Almost  immediately  Dr.  Lambert 
repented ;  but  it  was  too  late,  and  all  he  could  do  was  to 
signify  his  disapproval  by  absenting  himself  from  the 
wedding. 

The  unhappy  subject  of  so  much  dissension  had  been 
reduced  almost  to  welcome  marriage  even  with  so  uncon- 
genial a  mate  as  M.  Lamessine  as  one  way  of  escape  from 
perpetual  family  quarrels. 

But  alas  !  experience  proved  that  Dr.  Lambert's  objec- 
tions to  the  union  had  been  only  too  well  founded.  "  The 
man  whom  they  have  chosen  for  your  husband,"  her 
father  had  written  to  her,  "  is  not  one  whom  you  can  ever 
love  or  who  will  ever  love  you." 

With  a  delicate  hand  and  in  a  few  poignant  phrases 
Mme.  Adam  in  her  Souvenirs  passes  lightly  over  her 
married  misery.  Until  after  her  daughter  was  born,  in 
September  1854,  she  kept  her  sufferings  to  herself,  dreading 
the  anguish  which  a  revelation  of  them  would  inflict  on  her 
loved  ones.  It  was  during  her  confinement  at  Blerancourt 
that  Dr.  Lambert  discovered  her  unhappiness.  Some 
months  later,  while  she  was  visiting  her  granddaughter, 
it  was  borne  in  on  Mme.  Seron  that  she  had  committed  the 
gravest  of  blunders  in  marrying  Juliette  against  her  will. 
Now  that  the  last  instalment  of  his  wife's  dowry  had  been 
paid,  M.  Lamessine  shamelessly  avowed  that  he  had  never 
intended  to  keep  his  promise  of  receiving  his  wife's  grand- 
mother as  an  inmate  of  his  home  every  winter. 


42  MADAME   ADAM 

"  You  imagine  Juliette  happy,"  he  said.  "  She  is  not. 
Our  misunderstandings  are  perpetual.  If  we  had  you  as 
a  third,  what  would  they  be  like  ?  " 

"  Is  it  true,  Juliette,  that  you  are  unhappy?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  replied,  "  as  unhappy  as  it  is  possible 
to  be." 

Mme.  Seron  rose.  She  leant  against  a  piece  of  furniture 
to  avoid  falling,  for  she  shook  like  a  tree  which  has  been 
uprooted. 

She  reminded  her  son-in-law  of  his  promises.  "  They 
were  only  necessary,"  he  remarked  cynically,  "  as  long 
as  you  had  not  completely  fulfilled  yours." 

Mme.  Seron  left  the  house  abruptly.  Juliette  never 
saw  her  again.  She  went  home  to  Chauny  to  die.  In 
eleven  months  she  was  followed  by  her  husband,  Dr. 
Seron,  for,  as  he  said,  he  could  not  live  without  "  his  dear 
scold  "  (sa  chere  grondeuse). 

During  the  first  three  years  of  their  married  life  the 
Lamessines  resided  at  Soissons.  But  during  that  time 
they  paid  a  visit  to  Paris;  and  Juliette  had  her  first 
unforgettable  impression  of  that  brilliant  city  which  had 
figured  so  large  in  the  dreams  of  herself  and  her  grand- 
mother. 

When  Lamessine  first  proposed  to  her  that  she  should 
wean  her  baby,  Alice,  and  come  with  him  to  Paris,  she 
trembled.  For  in  Paris,  she  felt,  her  lot  would  be  cast. 
Paris  held  her  destiny.  Her  grandmother's  spirit  seemed 
to  dominate  hers  as  soon  as  Paris  entered  into  her  life. 

"  Bah,"  said  her  father,  when  she  told  him  of  her  hesita- 
tion. "  Don't  be  afraid  of  it.  Set  foot  in  it  bravely. 
Look  it  in  the  face,  this  Paris.  One  of  two  things  will 
happen  :  either  you  will  make  your  name  there,  as  your 
poor  grandmother  desired,  and  then  the  trials  of  your 
unhappy  marriage  will  not  have  been  in  vain ;  or  you 
will  break  your  bonds  and  come  back  to  your  father. 
With  us  you  will  lead  a  life,  if  not  happy,  at  least  free  from 
those  marital  responsibilities  which  fill  me  with  fear  for 
your  future."  l 

The  Paris  which  Juliette  visited  in  1855  was  Paris  of 
the  early  Second  Empire,  "  still  in  the  freshness  of  its  hopes 
and  enthusiasm."  It  was  Paris  of  the  first  universal 
1  Souvenirs,  II.  13. 


FIRST  MARRIAGE  AND  PARIS  43 

exhibition,  which  was  visited  by  Queen  Victoria  and  Prince 
Albert,  Paris  at  the  crose  of  the  Crimean  War. 

This  Paris  fully  came  up  to  Juliette's  expectations. 
Never  had  she  been  so  impressed  save  when  as  a  little  girl 
she  had  caught  her  first  glimpse  of  the  sea  at  Boulogne.1 

"  It  is  impossible,"  she  writes,  "  to  imagine  the  complete 
amazement  of  a  young  provincial  beholding  Paris  for  the 
first  time,  overwhelmed  by  myriads  of  sights  never  dreamed 
of."  From  that  moment  Juliette  adored  Paris  with  all 
the  enthusiasm  of  her  passionate  soul.  At  a  closer  ac- 
quaintance, during  a  residence  in  the  heart  of  Paris  extend- 
ing through  several  decades,  it  has  never  loosened  its  hold 
on  her  vivid  imagination.  We  shall  find  her  friend, 
Gambetta,  in  future  years,  speaking  to  her  of  voire 
Paris. 

After  a  fortnight  spent  with  her  husband  in  an  hotel  on 
the  Place  Louvois,  she  still  found  herself,  "  uninitiated 
into  the  hundredth  part  of  what  she  wanted  to  know."  2 
Herein  lies  the  secret  of  the  overpowering  impression 
which  Paris  made  upon  her :  "  What  she  wanted  to  know  !  " 
Paris  was  to  her  the  master-key  to  all  knowledge.  In 
Paris  lived  the  great  leaders  of  thought,  with  whose  ideas 
her  father  had  made  her  familiar,  the  idealist  politicians, 
whose  Utopian  dreams  she  had  made  her  own.  In  the 
streets  of  Paris  had  ebbed  and  flowed  the  tide  of  that 
wonderful  revolution  which  had  found  an  echo  in  Chauny 
streets,  and  even  in  Mile.  Andre's  pension.  In  Paris  might 
be  seen  those  exquisite  masterpieces  of  Greek  art,  the  living 
symbols  of  her  divine  Homer. 

Nevertheless  a  shadow  fell  even  over  the  radiant  exulta- 
tion of  those  first  weeks  in  Paris.  From  infancy  to  old 
age  Juliette  Adam  has  always  been  ambitious.  It  was  no 
mere  obscure  existence  in  the  great  city  that  she  had 
pictured  in  her  youthful  dreams.  Hers  was  to  be  no  diary 
of  a  nobody.  Encouraged  by  her  grandmother,  she  longed 
for  fame.  But  alas  !  her  hopes  were  dashed  when  she 
found  herself  lost  in  the  vast  crowds  which  thronged  the 
boulevards,  when  she  regarded  the  miles  of  well-filled 
shelves  in  the  immense  halls  of  the  Imperial  Library.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  only  homage  Paris  would  ever  render  her 
would  be  the  admiring  glances  of  street  arabs,  who  dis- 
tinguished her  as  they  had  done  another  Juliette.  The 
1  Souvenirs,  I.  214.  2  Ibid.,  16. 


44  MADAME  ADAM 

young  Mme.  Jamessine  despaired  of  ever  emerging  from 
the  mass,  of  ever  carving  for  herself  even  the  tiniest  niche 
in  the  temple  of  literary  renown.  For  it  was  to  be  a 
distinguished  writer  that  she  aspired.  Already  she  had 
quite  a  hoard  of  youthful  scribblings,  infantile  verses 
which  her  grandparents  thought  wonderful,  romances 
over  whose  patriotic  incidents  the  youthful  authoress  had 
wept  bitter  tears,  a  prize  essay,  written  in  competition  with 
the  pupils  of  the  boys'  school  opposite  her  Chauny  home. 

During  her  life  at  Soissons,  it  was  in  study  and  in  literary 
composition  that  Juliette  had  sought  distraction  from 
domestic  unhappiness.  Some  of  her  verses,  a  poem 
entitled  Myosotis,  had  actually  been  published  and  set  to 
music  by  the  cathedral  organist. 

But  it  was  after  her  return  from  Paris  that  she  achieved 
a  success  which  encouraged  her  to  hope  that,  perhaps,  after 
all  she  might  not  pass  her  life  unnoticed. 

The  popular  novelist,  Alphonse  Karr,  was  then  con- 
tributing to  the  Siecle  weekly  articles  on  social  subjects, 
entitled  "  Buzzings "  (Bourdonnements).  A  girl  friend 
of  Juliette's,  Pauline  Barbereux,  used  to  bring  her  the 
Siecle  and  together  they  read  Karr's  articles.  One  of 
these  was  on  the  crinoline,  then  at  the  height  of  its  vogue. 
After  having  thoroughly  enjoyed  himself  at  the  expense 
of  all  its  absurdities,  Karr  declared  that  there  was  not  a 
single  young  and  pretty  woman  in  France  with  sufficient 
independence  of  mind  not  to  wear  it.  "  There  is  I,"  cried 
Juliette.  "And  what  if  I  wrote  and  told  him  so?" 
For  though  affecting  the  full  skirt,  pretty  Mme.  Lamessine 
had  always  stopped  short  of  the  crinoline.  Pauline  was 
delighted  with  the  idea.  So  together  they  set  to  work  to 
concoct  the  letter,  which  should,  of  course,  be  anonymous. 
The  writer,  therefore,  was  able  to  enlarge  on  the  charms 
of  this  independent  young  female  who  refused  to  answer 
to  the  beck  and  call  of  fashion. 

"  Yes,  sir,"  wrote  Juliette,  "  there  is  a  pretty  woman  of 
twenty  who  does  not  wear  the  crinoline,  who  has  never 
worn  it,  there  is  one  in  France,  in  the  provinces,  and  that 
one  is  I,  Juliette."  x 

Mme.  Adam,  throughout  her  long  life,  has  ever  been  a 
fervent  feminist,  passionately  interested  in  woman's  role 
and  position  in  society.  In  her  childhood's  desultory 
1  Souvenirs,  II.  25. 


FIRST  MARRIAGE  AND  PARIS  45 

reading  she  had  eagerly  devoured  a  volume  on  the  Fronde. 
It  interested  her  because  women  played  the  principal  part 
in  it.  And  she  was  thinking  of  those  frondeuses  when  she 
led  her  schoolfellows  round  the  playground  behind  the 
banner  of  the  social  democratic  handkerchief. 

It  was  not  unnatural,  therefore,  that  Juliette  should 
insinuate  into  this,  her  first  contribution  to  the  press,  her 
own  views  on  feminism,  though  they  were  expressed  as 
far  as  possible  in  the  style  of  Alphonse  Karr.  To  the 
accompaniment  of  little  Alice's  baby  gurglings,  she  read 
the  rough  draft  to  Pauline,  who,  having  declared  it  superb, 
dictated  it  solemnly  while  Juliette  copied  it  on  to  magnifi- 
cent paper.  Then  the  wonderful  document,  "  the  article," 
as  Pauline  christened  it,  was  re-read,  folded  carefully,  put 
into  an  imposing  envelope,  signed  with  a  beautiful  seal, 
which  was  engraved  with  the  writer's  Christian  name. 
Thereupon,  writes  Juliette,  we  repaired  (no  word  less 
ceremonious  could  express  such  an  act)  with  our  precious 
packet  to  the  post. 

Oh,  that  week,  how  interminable  it  seemed  !  Could  it 
be  possible  that  Alphonse  Karr  would  reply  to  the  letter  ? 
On  the  night  before  the  Siecle's  appearance  Juliette 
dreamed  of  her  poem,  Myosotis.  She  interpreted  that 
dream  as  a  good  sign.  The  20th  of  February,  1856, 
dawned.  Would  Paris  read  that  letter  signed  Juliette? 
.  .  .  Pauline  comes  in  breathless,  pale  with  excitement. 
The  Steele  flutters  in  her  hand.  "  Juliette,"  she  cries, 
"  it  is  all  there."  "  All."  "  And  then,"  writes  Juliette,1 
"  we  take  two  chairs  and  we  draw  them  close  to  one 
another.  We  unfold  the  paper,  and  each  holding  one 
corner,  we  read.  Yes,  the  whole  of  my  letter  is  there.  I 
read  it.  Pauline  reads  it.  Not  a  word  has  been  changed. 
I  burst  into  tears.  Pauline  weeps  too.  Baby  Alice, 
playing  on  the  carpet,  when  she  sees  us  crying,  begins  to 
howl.  Her  godmother,  Pauline,  soothes  and  consoles  her. 
I  think  of  my  grandmother  .  .  .  and  I  cry  :  '  Grand- 
mother, I  shall  be  a  writer.' 

"  I  send  father  my  article  and  tell  him  how  I  came  to 
write  it." 

This  somewhat  severe  critic  replied  at  length,  and  for 
the  first  time,  it  appeared,  discerned  in  his  daughter  a 
promise  of  literary  talent. 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  26. 


46  MADAME   ADAM 

For  the  rest  of  her  time  at  Soissons  Juliette  read 
voraciously,  desiring  to  prepare  herself  for  Paris.  Whirled 
suddenly  into  the  great  vortex  of  metropolitan  life,  as  she 
expected  to  be,  she  could  not  hope  to  have  any  time  for 
study.  She  must,  therefore,  work  hard  to  fill  up  the  gaps 
in  her  desultory  education  and  to  equip  herself  for  the 
brilliant  career  awaiting  her. 

Finally  her  hopes  were  realised.  She  found  herself 
the  mistress  of  a  flat  in  Paris  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  with  a 
balcony  looking  on  to  the  Louvre  and  close  to  the  Museum 
of  Antiquities,  the  temple  of  her  gods.  Her  grandmother's 
faith  in  her  seemed  to  be  justified. 

But  alas  !  as  the  weeks  went  on,  Juliette  herself  suffered 
disappointment.  The  society  in  which  she  moved  was 
utterly  uncongenial.  Her  husband's  friends  bored  and 
revolted  her;  they  talked  of  nothing  but  business;  and 
her  husband  himself,  when  not  discussing  affairs,  was  for 
ever  extolling  the  doctrines  of  Auguste  Comte,  whose 
positivism  seemed  to  Juliette  the  negation  of  all  her 
idealism.  This  disappointment,  and  the  unhappiness  of 
her  home  life,  brought  on  an  attack  of  neuralgia.  She 
consulted  the  doctor  of  her  quartier,  a  certain  Dr.  Bonnard, 
who  had  already  corresponded  with  her  father  about  a 
medical  pamphlet,  of  which  Dr.  Lambert  was  the  author. 
The  doctor  was  quick  to  see  that  what  Juliette  needed  was 
the  physic  of  congenial  society.  He  himself  fortunately 
was  in  touch  with  literary  people.  He  introduced  her  to 
two  circles,  one  poetical,  the  other  philosophical,  where 
his  young  patient  speedily  felt  herself  at  home.  It  was 
through  Dr.  Bonnard  that  the  charming  young  Mme. 
Lamessine  became  a  member  of  V  Union  des  Poetes.  And 
it  was  a  member  of  the  Union,  who,  on  a  certain  memorable 
day,  took  Juliette  to  see  her  first  great  Paris  celebrity. 
This  was  the  aged  Beranger,  a  poet,  wThose  name  had  been 
one  of  the  household  words  of  her  childhood,  whose  songs 
exalting  his  adored  Emperor  her  grandfather  had  known 
by  heart. 

Never  had  Juliette  seen  "  a  simpler,  more  charming, 
more  paternal,  more  kindly  satirical  old  man." x  The 
poet  had  read  some  of  his  young  visitor's  compositions. 
And  the  verdict  he  passed  on  them  was  frank  and  somewhat 
brutal. 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  30. 


FIRST  MARRIAGE  AND  PARIS  47 

"  My  child,"  he  said,  "  you  will  never  be  a  poet,  but  you 
may  one  day  be  a  writer." 

Juliette's  reception  of  this  crushing  dictum,  while 
showing  her  sensitiveness  to  criticism,  proves  that  her 
reason  had  not  been  warped  by  all  the  extravagant  adula- 
tion she  had  received  in  childhood.  For  she  bore  the 
veteran  poet  no  grudge  for  his  disappointment  of  her 
hopes.  But,  from  that  day,  she  ceased  to  write  poetry  and 
withdrew  from  the  Poet's  Union. 

As  she  was  leaving,  Beranger  said  to  her,  "  Good-bye, 
my  child.     You  will  soon  forgive  me." 

"Good-bye?"  said  Juliette,  "why  not  au  revoir  ? 
Don't  you  like  me?  Don't  you  wish  ever  to  see  me 
again?  " 

Shrugging  his  shoulders  and  looking  through  the  open 
windows,  he  said,  "  I  think  that  I  shall  soon  be  going  up 
there  to  see  the  Dieu  des  bonnes  gens."  He  died  shortly 
afterwards  at  the  age  of  seven-and-seventy,  in  July  1857. 

Before  her  reluctant  resignation  from  the  Poet's  Union 
Juliette  had  begun  to  frequent  a  philosophical  circle  to 
which  Dr.  Bonnard  introduced  her.  We  have  seen  how 
from  her  tenderest  childhood  her  father  had  made  her 
acquainted  with  most  of  the  numerous  philosophical 
systems — the  ideas  of  Cousin,  Fourier,  Comte,  Proudhon, 
and  others — which  were  at  that  time  revolutionising 
human  thought.  With  her  natural  quickness  and  keen- 
ness of  intuition  Juliette  had  comprehended  their  main 
principles.  Consequently  she  was  not  the  least  confused 
by  the  learned  discussions  which  took  place  in  the  salon 
of  her  new  friends,  M.  and  Mme.  Fauvety. 

M.  Charles  Fauvety  was  founder  and  editor  of  a  well- 
known  publication,  La  Revue  Philosophique.  Among  the 
chief  contributors  to  this  erudite  magazine  was  the 
philosopher,  M.  Charles  Renouvier,  the  author  of  a  learned 
work,  Essais  de  Critique  Ginirale,  in  four  volumes,  which 
he  was  then  preparing,  and  which  was  not  completed  until 
1864. 

M.  Renouvier  possessed  that  inestimable  gift  of  lucid 
exposition,  which  is  so  essentially  French.  Listening  to, 
engaging  in,  and  noting  down  his  conversations  with  his 
editor,  Juliette  continued  and  carried  to  a  point  far 
advanced  for  one  of  her  age  and  sex  that  philosophical 
education  which  her  father  had  begun.      It  had  long  been 


48  MADAME   ADAM 

her  habit  to  keep  a  diary  and  to  insert  in  it  accounts  of 
any  discussion  which  interested  her.  And  it  is  to  this 
habit  that  we  owe  the  reproduction  in  her  Souvenirs  of 
those  entrancing  conversations  which  give  us  so  vivid  a 
picture  of  the  intellectual  life  of  the  period. 

Throughout  Juliette's  early  womanhood  and  maturity 
there  was  no  one  who  exercised  a  greater  influence  on 
French  thought  than  Hippolyte  Taine.  His  influence  was 
at  its  zenith  in  the  sixties;  but  already  in  this  year,  1857, 
those  who  like  Fauvety  and  Renouvier  were  gifted  with 
prophetic  insight  could  discern  his  coming  greatness. 

The  publication  of  Taine's  Essais  de  Critique  et  d'Histoire 
was  a  great  event  in  the  circle  of  La  Revue  Philosophique. 

"  These  young  men  x  are  admirable,"  cried  Renouvier.2 
"  And  seldom  has  it  been  given  to  forerunners,  such  as  I, 
to  take  so  great  a  delight  in  their  disciples.  For  I,  in  a 
way,  hatched  Taine." 

"  Taine,"  said  the  editor  of  La  Revue  Philosophique, 
"  will  remain  the  hope  or  the  anxiety  of  every  philosophical 
system.  He  has  taken  a  scourge  in  his  hands.  For  the 
next  half- century,  he  will  enthrone  himself  on  the  judgment 
seat,  and  he  will  scathe  every  idea  which  wears  out  with 
use.    I,  as  a  philosopher,  fear  him  and  rely  upon  him  alone." 

Mme.  Lamessine  was  not  the  only  woman  member  of 
that  erudite  circle.  There  was  Mme.  Fauvety,  a  clever 
woman,  who  had  been  an  actress,  and  for  a  time  the 
rival  of  Rachel.  She  mingled  intelligently  in  the  philoso- 
phical discussions  of  her  husband  and  his  friends.  There 
was  also  a  certain  Mme.  Jenny  d'Hericourt,  the  only 
member  of  the  circle  whom  Juliette  disliked.  She  too 
contributed  to  La  Revue  Philosophique ;  and  she  was 
tainted  with  that  narrow  bigotry  and  dogmatism  which 
were  characteristic  of  the  publication,  but  from  which 
the  broad-minded  Renouvier  was  entirely  free.  A  blue- 
stocking of  the  most  objectionable  type,  une  vertu  farouche, 
as  Juliette  called  her,  la  forte  Jenny  was  conceited, 
censorious,  pedantic  and  an  inveterate  scandalmonger. 
Such  a  person  would  naturally  refuse  to  believe  that 
any  one  so  young  and  pretty  as  Juliette  could  have 
the  slightest  comprehension  of  philosophy.  Nevertheless, 
on  one  subject  at  least  the  feminine  Juliette  and  the 
Amazonian    Jenny    were    agreed :     they    both    detested 

1  Taine,  born  in  1828,  was  then  twenty-nine.  '  Souvenirs,  II.  39. 


FIRST  MARRIAGE  AND  PARIS  49 

Proudhon.  Jenny  had  attacked  his  doctrines  in  an 
extremely  able  book,  which  Juliette  had  read  and  appre- 
ciated; for  the  materialistic  and  purely  economic  ideas 
of  the  father  of  modern  syndicalism  had  never  appealed 
to  her,  and  she  had  fought  many  a  battle  of  words  on  that 
subject  with  Dr.  Lambert,  who  admired  him.  But,  when 
Juliette  ventured  to  discuss  the  economist  with  his  female 
critic,  Mme.  d'Hericourt  was  furious.  "  Would  you  believe 
it,"  she  exclaimed  to  Fauvety,  "  that  young  lady  actually 
dares  to  take  upon  herself  to  underline  Proudhon  !  "  It 
was  bold,  doubtless,  in  one  so  young  and  so  charming. 
But  Mme.  Lamessine,  nothing  daunted  by  Jenny's  gibes, 
was  to  be  bolder  still,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter. 

We  should  convey  a  very  wrong  impression  of  Juliette's 
early  womanhood  if  we  represented  her  as  entirely  absorbed 
in  abstruse  studies  and  frequenting  only  philosophers  and 
blue-stockings.  The  lighter  sides  of  life  have  always 
appealed  to  her.  As  a  schoolgirl  she  excelled  in  games, 
and  she  has  ever  loved  play  as  well  as  work.  Now  she  was 
eagerly  grasping  the  opportunities  of  amusement  which 
Paris  of  the  Empire  knew  so  well  how  to  offer,  especially 
to  one  as  attractive  as  Mme.  Lamessine. 

Mme.  Fauvety  took  her  to  the  theatre — not  to  first 
nights,  this  wise  ex-actress  preferred  to  wait  until  the 
players  had  perfected  their  parts,  and  it  was  not  until  the 
last  performances  were  announced  that  she  considered  a 
play  really  worth  seeing.  Alexandre  Dumas  fils  was  then 
at  the  height  of  his  popularity.  La  Dame  aux  Camelias, 
Diane  de  Lys,  La  Question  d' Argent,  were  the  talk  of  the 
town.  Though  Juliette  had  ceased  to  write  poetry,  she 
had  not  ceased  to  associate  with  poets.  And  it  was  a 
member  of  the  Poet's  Union  who  took  her  to  her  first 
fancy-dress  ball,  where  her  escort  appeared  as  Vercingetorix, 
and  she  herself  was  disguised  as  the  Gallic  Cassandra, 
Velleda.  She  wore  a  long  white  robe,  confined  by  a  golden 
girdle  from  which  hung  a  gilded  scythe.  Her  arms  were 
bare  to  the  shoulder,  and  it  was  for  the  first  time  in  her 
life,  she  writes,  "  for  even  at  dances  in  those  days  we  wore 
sleeves."  Her  light  brown  hair  with  its  gleam  of  gold 
hung  over  her  shoulders,  crowned  with  a  wreath  of  mistle- 
toe. Meyerbeer,  the  musical  idol  of  the  early  Empire, 
happened  to  be  present.  Velleda  made  a  great  impression 
on  this  queer  little  old  man.     "  Why  !    she  will  make  me 

E 


50  MADAME  ADAM 

forget  my  Selika !  "  (the  composition  on  which  he  was 
then  engaged),  he  is  said  to  have  exclaimed.  "  I  am  too 
old  to  fall  in  love  with  a  new  face,"  and  he  left  the  ball- 
room abruptly.  For  months  afterwards  every  morning 
Juliette  received  a  bunch  of  violets  with  the  words,  Souvenir 
6mu  a  Velleda — and  one  day  came  a  ticket  for  a  box  for 
the  first  night  of  the  Pardon  de  Ploermel.  But  she  never 
saw  her  aged  admirer  again.  Some  years  after  his  death, 
on  the  occasion  of  the  first  performance  of  his  L'  Africaine, 
Juliette  received  a  ticket  for  a  box  in  a  little  casket  with  a 
bunch  of  violets,  tied  with  a  ribbon  on  which  was  written 
le  dernier.  "  She  will  come  to  the  first  night  of  U  Africaine 
wherever  she  is,"  Meyerbeer  had  said. 

Already  the  Lamessines  were  in  the  whirl  of  political 
life.  On  the  14th  of  January,  1858,  the  evening  of  Orsini's 
attempted  assassination  of  the  Emperor,  while  they  were 
shopping  in  the  Palais  Royal,  a  Sicilian  friend,  who  was 
with  them,  was  arrested.  On  the  next  morning  their 
flat  was  searched.  But  this  time  there  were  no  com- 
promising documents  for  Juliette  to  conceal.  M.  Lamessine 
had  no  difficulty  in  proving  his  friend's  innocence  and 
obtaining  his  speedy  release. 

Those  were  the  days  when  the  long  conflict  between 
sermentistes  and  abstentionistes,  which  later  was  to  rage 
high  in  Juliette's  salon,  was  just  beginning.  The  sermen- 
tistes were  those  who  consented  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  Empire,  the  abstentionistes  those  who  held  them- 
selves completely  aloof. 

Juliette  and  her  friends  at  Mme.  Fauvety's  were  all 
ardent  abstentionistes.  They  were  disgusted  when,  in  June 
1857,  the  first  so-called  republican,  Emile  Ollivier,  took  the 
oath,  on  his  election  to  the  Corps  Legislatif.  Ollivier' s 
betrayal  of  the  republican  cause,  they  regarded  as  all  the 
more  inexcusable  because  his  father,  one  of  the  stalwarts 
of  1848,  was  then  in  exile  through  his  loyalty  to  the  prin- 
ciples his  son  had  sacrificed.  But  Ollivier  and  many 
others,  who  speedily  followed  his  example,  had  on  their 
side  no  less  a  democrat  than  Proudhon.  That  unflinching 
advocate  of  the  people's  cause  maintained  that  to  take 
the  oath  to  the  Emperor  was  merely  to  recognise  the  people's 
sovereignty  embodied  in  the  chief  of  the  State.  Such  an 
argument  did  not  raise  Proudhon  in  the  esteem  of  so 
uncompromising  a  person  as  Juliette. 


CHAPTER  V 

HER   FIRST    BOOK 

1858 

"  Vceuvre  de  Mme.  Juliette  Lamber  n'est  que  Vhymne  triomphante  des 
sentiments  humains  les  plus  nobles  et  les  plus  joyeux." — Jules  Lemaitre. 

Born  and  bred  in  an  atmosphere  of  controversy,  inherit- 
ing from  her  grandmother  and  father  an  argumentative 
disposition,  it  is  not  surprising  that  in  the  field  of  polemics 
Juliette  won  her  first  literary  laurels.  Neither  was  it  in- 
consistent with  her  ambitious  nature  that  she  should  have 
chosen  for  adversary  the  most  distinguished  controversialist 
of  the  day.  The  socialist  Proudhon  was  regarded  not  only 
as  an  eminent  economist  but  as  a  master  of  dialectics. 

Proudhon' s  masterpiece  appeared  on  the  22nd  of  April, 
1858.  It  was  a  work  in  three  volumes,  entitled  La  Justice 
dans  la  Revolution  et  dans  VEglise.  Announced  in  1854, 
this  book  had  been  eagerly  awaited  by  philosophic  readers, 
among  whom  was  Juliette's  father. 

Dr.  Lambert  wrote  to  his  daughter  that  she  must  buy 
La  Justice  at  once,  and  that,  as  she  finished  each  volume, 
she  must  send  it  down  to  him  at  Chauny.  It  was  well 
that  Juliette  carried  out  her  father's  recommendation,  for 
in  a  few  days  the  book  was  suppressed x  and  its  author,  who 
had  fled  to  Belgium,  condemned  to  three  years'  imprison- 
ment and  a  fine  of  4000  francs. 

Juliette,  as  she  read  these  pages,  was  compelled  to  recog- 
nise the  excellence  of  the  writer's  style  and  the  skill  of  his 
dialectics.  But  the  so-called  "  justice  "  which  Proudhon 
here  metes  out  to  women  could  not  but  infuriate  so  fervent 
a  feminist.     For  even  a  cursory  survey  of  this  book  will 

1  The  edition  from  which  I  quote  is  that  of  1870  in  four  volumes.  The 
suppressed  edition  of  1858,  according  to  Mme.  Adam's  Souvenirs,  II.  66, 
was  in  three  volumes.  In  a  few  years  the  condemnation  was  removed 
and  permission  given  to  Proudhon  to  return  to  France.  He  elected, 
however,  to  remain  in  Belgium. 

SI 


52  MADAME   ADAM 

serve  to  reveal  that  the  writer  here  carries  the  anti-feminist 
argument  to  its  extreme  verge.  No  self-respecting  woman 
could  possibly  read  these  pages  without  being  moved  to 
indignation,  unless  she  resolve  to  treat  the  matter  as  a 
huge  joke;  but  unfortunately  Proudhon,  like  most  pure 
economists,  had  no  sense  of  humour  :  he  only  stumbled 
into  being  funny.  A  breath  of  the  blessed  illuminating 
comic  spirit  would  have  saved  him  from  many  a  ludicrous 
absurdity. 

Juliette's  resentment  of  the  philosopher's  sweeping 
indictment  of  her  sex  was  aggravated  by  his  singling  out 
for  special  condemnation  the  two  women  whom  among 
her  contemporaries  she  admired  most.  "  J'ai  la  folie 
a"  admirer,"  she  has  said  of  herself;  and  with  all  the  ardour 
of  her  passionate  soul  she  admired  George  Sand  and 
Daniel  Stern  (la  Comtesse  d'Agoult).  It  was  precisely 
against  these  two  distinguished  writers  that  Proudhon 
directed  all  the  vitriol  of  his  invective.  In  George  Sand's 
work  he  would  see  nothing  but  une  orgueilleuse  impuissance.1 
Daniel  Stern,2  because  in  her  Esquisses  Morales  she  had 
ventured  to  maintain  that  woman  need  not  necessarily  be 
inferior  to  man,  he  decried  as  une  femme  savante  qui  parle 
sans  raison  ni  conscience? 

Writhing  under  these  insults,  Juliette  went  one  evening 
to  Mme.  Fauvety's.  There  she  said  to  Jenny  d'Hericourt, 
"  You  ought  to  defend  the  women  who  are  thus  insulted, 
you  who  know  so  well  how  to  wield  a  pen  against  the 
terrible  Proudhon.  It  would  be  disgraceful  to  leave 
unanswered  such  abominable  charges." 

"  George  Sand  and  Daniel  Stern,"  replied  this  vertu 
farouche,  "  have  only  what  they  deserve.  I  insist  upon 
virtue  and  I  practise  it.  Proudhon  has  not  dared  to 
insult  me,  I  am  certain  of  it,  though  I  have  not  yet 
read  his  book." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Juliette.  "  I  am  nobody,  it  is  true, 
although  I  am  as  virtuous  as  you,  and  I  will  reply  to 
Proudhon.     Women,  they  must  be  defended  by  women." 

This  esprit  de  corps,  this  loyalty  not  to  her  sex  alone, 
but  to  any  cause  or  party,  political,  social  or  religious  with 

1  La  Justice  dans  la  Revolution  et  dans  VEglite  (ed.  1870),  vol.  iv.  203. 
a  Her  best-known  works  are  a  novel,  Nelida,  and  her  History  of  the 
Revolution  of  1848. 
3  Proudhon,  La  Justice,  vol.  iv,  140. 


HER  FIRST   BOOK  53 

which  she  has  chosen  to  identify  herself,  has  ever  char- 
acterised Mme.  Adam,  and  the  conflict  of  her  sense  of 
solidarity  with  her  innate  Celtic  rebelliousness  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  traits  in  her  psychology. 

Thus  bravely  did  this  young  woman  of  twenty-two  take 
up  the  glove  thrown  down  by  the  most  eminent  and  the  most 
skilful  dialectician  of  the  day.  For  two  months  she  was 
absorbed  in  the  writing  of  this,  her  first  book.  Most  of  the 
work  was  done  at  night.  She  would  shut  herself  up  in  her 
room,  where  she  was  alone  with  little  Alice.  Whenever  she 
found  time  to  go  to  the  Fauvety's,  M.  Fauvety  and  M. 
Renouvier  inquired  eagerly  after  the  progress  of  the  great 
work.     Mme.  d'Hericourt  continued  scornful. 

"  Well,  and  this  defence  of  your  famous  friends,  how  is 
it  getting  on?  "  she  would  inquire  derisively.  "  If  you 
succeed  in  carrying  it  through,  God  send  those  great  ladies 
be  grateful  to  you,  seeing  all  the  pains  you  seem  to  be 
taking."  1 

"  Madame,"  replied  Juliette,  "  I  am  taking  great  pains. 
But  then  you  must  remember  I  am  but  a  novice;  and 
you  can't  expect  one  of  my  age  to  have  the  experience  of 
veterans." 

"  Veterans  !  Veterans  !  "  cried  the  irate  lady.  "  You 
mean  me,  doubtless.  Well,  if  you  defend  some  of  us  you 
are  very  impertinent  to  others." 

Finally  the  book  was  finished,  and  entitled  I  dees  Anti- 
Proudhoniennes.  It  was  read  to  M.  Fauvety,  who  approved 
and  gave  useful  advice.  But  to  Juliette's  dismay  he 
expressed  a  doubt  whether  a  reply  to  so  powerful  an  adver- 
sary, so  acrimonious  a  controversialist,  so  consummate  a 
master  of  dialectics  would  ever  find  a  publisher. 

In  her  passionate  enthusiasm  for  her  task,  such  a  horrid 
fear  had  never  once  entered  Juliette's  mind. 

"  What !  "  she  cried,  "  my  poor  book  which  has  devoured 
my  nights  will  never  see  day?  " 

"  You  have  made  a  mot,"  replied  the  editor  of  La  Revue 
Philosophique,  laughing.  "  But  now  you  must  captivate 
some  great  publisher.  Don't  write,  but  offer  your  manu- 
script in  person.  Who  knows?  However,  I  doubt 
whether  you  will  succeed  when  your  book  has  been 
read." 

Such  an  opinion  from  so  competent  a  critic  would  have 
1  Souvenirs,  II.  68. 


54  MADAME   ADAM 

discouraged  most  writers.  But  Juliette,  with  a  buoyant 
hopefulness  which  has  ever  supported  her  throughout  all 
the  trials  of  her  long  career,  was  not  deterred.  She  merely 
concluded  that  such  difficulties  in  the  way  of  publication 
would  involve  her  having  to  defray  the  expenses  of  the 
book's  appearance.  Consequently  she  went  down  to 
Chauny  to  demand  her  father's  fulfilment  of  a  rash  promise 
that  should  she  ever  give  birth  to  a  volume  he  would  pay 
for  its  publication. 

"  I  told  him,"  writes  Juliette,  "  that  I  had  written  a 
book."  "  What  is  it?  "  he  asked,  not  unnaturally.  But 
the  subject  of  her  book  was  the  last  thing  Juliette  meant  to 
reveal  to  this  disciple  of  Proudhon.  It  would  seem  a 
thing  unheard  of  that  Dr.  Lambert  should  be  asked  to  pay 
for  the  publication  of  a  book  when  he  was  ignorant  of  its 
contents.  But  this  was  Juliette's  request;  and  she  knew 
her  father  could  refuse  her  nothing.  She  was  encouraged, 
moreover,  when  she  heard  him  express  his  annoyance  with 
the  philosopher  for  his  gross  attacks  on  such  devoted 
republicans  as  George  Sand  and  Daniel  Stern.  "  You 
must  have  been  sadly  wounded,  Juliette?"  he  inquired. 
"  Yes,  I  was  heart-broken,"  she  replied.  Yet  she  did  not 
enlighten  him  any  further.  Nevertheless  she  returned  to 
Paris  with  the  thousand  francs,  which  her  doting  parent 
calculated  would  suffice  for  the  publication  of  her  literary 
first-born. 

Then  followed  the  search  for  a  publisher.  Always 
ambitious,  Juliette  applied  to  one  of  the  greatest  publishing 
houses  in  the  world.  She  addressed  herself  to  M.  Michel 
Levy,1  the  publisher  of  Victor  Hugo,  of  Saint-Beuve,  of 
Alexandre  Dumas,  who  had  recently  discovered  Renan 
in  his  garret.  That  famous  master  used  to  declare  that 
Michel  Levy  had  been  ordained  by  a  special  decree  of 
Providence  to  become  his  publisher.  Such  was  not 
Juliette's  experience;  for  M.  Levy's  reception  of  her  was, 
to  put  it  mildly,  not  encouraging.2 

"  Here  is  a  young  lady,"  said  his  clerk,  and  in  what  a 
tone  !  "  who  has  come  about  a  book  she  has  written,  which 
she  wants  the  firm  to  publish." 

1  M.  Michel  Levy  on  his  death  in  1875,  was  succeeded  as  head  of  the 
firm  by  M.  Calmann  Levy,  father  of  the  M.  Calmann  Levy,  who  to-day 
presides  over  the  business  at  3,  rue  Auber. 

2  Souvenirs,  II.  74. 


HER  FIRST   BOOK  55 

Smiling,  M.  Levy  looked  at  his  visitor  and  asked  :  "  The 
subject  of  the  book  ?  " 

"  A  reply  to  the  attacks  made  on  George  Sand  and 
Daniel  Stern  in  La  Justice  dans  la  Revolution?' 

"  And  this  reply  is  by  you,  mademoiselle  ?  " 

"  Madame,  sir." 

"  And  you  think  that  a  book  like  this  will  be  published 
by  the  house  of  Michel  Levy  ?  " 

"  Oh,  sir,  I  quite  realise  that  I  must  bear  the  expense  of 
the  publication  of  my  first  book.  If  you  would  be  so  kind 
as  to  read  it." 

"  Useless,  madame." 

"  What  !     Do  you  decide  without  having  looked  at  it  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  I  can  see  perfectly  what  your  .  .  .  work  is  like 
merely  by  looking  at  you.  What  do  you  think,  my  good 
Scholl  ?  "  x  said  he,  addressing  some  one  who  had  just 
come  in. 

"  It  would  be  a  pity,"  said  Scholl,  "  for  madame  to  be- 
come a  commonplace  blue-stocking.  You  are  quite  right 
to  discourage  her,  my  dear  Levy.  She  has  something 
better  to  do." 

"  Monsieur  Aurelien  Scholl,"  replied  Juliette  proudly, 
"M.  Huegel,  near  by,  has  published  a  poem  2  by  me  which 
may  not  be  as  good  as  your  Denise,  but  my  prose  may 
quite  well  be  equal  to  yours."  3 

And  with  her  heart  in  her  mouth,  her  literary  personality, 
as  she  puts  it,  thoroughly  humiliated,  she  left  Michel 
Levy's  office.  Scholl,  with  whom  she  was  often  to  discuss 
that  scene  in  after  years,  told  her  he  had  advised  Levy 
to  call  her  back. 

Though  for  the  moment  her  hopes  were  all  dashed  to  the 
ground,  Juliette  was  unconquered.  Her  courage  has  ever 
been  roused  by  opposition.  And  M.  Levy's  impertinence 
had  provided  her  with  a  further  incentive  to  succeed  : 
she  desired  ardently  to  prove  him  in  the  wrong.  So  she 
continued  her  search  for  a  publisher;  and  always  it  was 
the  leaders  of  the  publishing  world  whom  she  visited. 
No  less  than  eight  did  she  approach,  not  omitting  even 

1  A  brilliant  and  fashionable  journalist  of  the  day,  who  was  also  a 
poet  and  critic.  His  best- known  work  is  Le  Nain  Jaune.  Later,  Mme. 
Lamessine  was  to  see  him  frequently. 

2  Myosotis. 

a  For  the  discussion  of  Denise  at  the  Poet's  Union  see  Souvenirs,  II,  49. 


56  MADAME   ADAM 

Proudhon's  own  publisher.  He  was  extremely  polite,  but 
he  said  :  "  You  will  understand,  madame,  that  such  things 
are  not  done."  At  that  time  Hetzel,  one  of  the  most 
literary  of  Paris  publishers,  was  in  exile  at  Brussels.  Juliette 
wrote  to  him.  He  replied  :  x  "  Either  your  book  is  very 
bad  or  you  use  a  coloured  handkerchief,  and  possibly  you 
take  snuff.  I  can't  believe  a  woman,  who  is  probably  ugly 
and  certainly  middle-aged,  can  have  any  right  to  defend 
against  Proudhon  the  youth  of  George  Sand  and  Daniel 
Stern  or  their  position  in  the  world.  You  would  expose 
them  to  ridicule,  and  they  would  never  forgive  you.  For 
doubtless  Proudhon  would  reply  to  you." 

Here  was  a  dilemma.  What  was  Juliette  to  do?  Evi- 
dently none  of  the  recognised  publishers  would  even  read 
her  MS.,  for  they  all  either  found  her  too  pretty  or  suspected 
her  of  being  plain. 

On  the  ground  floor  of  her  house  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli 
was  a  bookseller,  Taride  by  name,  of  whom  Juliette  was 
an  excellent  customer.  She  took  him  into  her  confidence. 
Would  he  publish  her  book  if  she  stood  all  the  expense? 
"Why  not,  madame?"  he  replied.  "We  neither  of  us 
run  any  risk,  for  we  are  both  unknown,  and  if  we  fail,  no 
one  will  hear  of  it." 

Consequently,  Juliette  put  down  eight  hundred  francs, 
and  the  book  appeared,  in  defiance  of  the  bookseller's 
advice,  in  the  summer,  on  the  15th  of  August,  when,  as  the 
saying  went,  there  was  not  "  a  cat  in  Paris."  But  the 
impatient  young  authoress,  whose  hopes  had  been  so  long 
delayed,  refused  to  wait  until  the  autumn. 

On  the  19th  of  the  month  Juliette  installed  herself  in  the 
bookseller's  back  shop,  and  inscribed  on  the  fly-leaves  of 
fifty  copies  suitable  dedications  to  the  most  important 
figures  in  the  world  of  journalism  and  letters  :  George 
Sand,  Daniel  Stern,  Littre,  Emile  de  Girardin,  Prosper 
Merimee,  Edmond  About,  Octave  Feuillet,  Jules  Grevy, 
Hippolyte  Carnot  and  others.  Then  dispatching  an  errand- 
boy  with  the  celebrities'  copies,  she  herself  took  a  cab  and 
delivered  the  books  at  the  newspaper  offices. 

This  done,  her  next  concern  was  to  go  down  to  Chauny 

and  put  a  volume  into  her  father's  hands.     What  would  he 

say  to  her  impudence  in  attacking  so  great  a  philosopher, 

to  her  Idees  Anti-Proudhoniennes  ?     And,  indeed,  the  title 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  75. 


HER  FIRST   BOOK  5T 

was  a  shock  to  him.  He  took  the  little  volume  in  his  hand, 
turned  it  round  and  round.  "  What  if  it's  bad  ?  "  he  began. 
"But  if  it's  good?"  interposed  Juliette.  "Ah,  at  your 
age,  even  if  you  have  half  a  success,  you  are  distinguished 
for  life."  * 

After  dinner,  finding  her  very  agitated,  he  sent  her  to 
bed.  "  Va  te  coucher,  Basile"  he  said.  "  I  will  read  your 
book  to-night,  and  tell  you  what  I  think  of  it  in  the 
morning." 

"  At  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  he  came  into  his 
daughter's  room  and  awakened  her  with  the  words  : 2 
"  It  is  good,  it  is  good.  But  it  is  mine.  I  sowed  the  seed 
in  your  mind  of  these  Idees  Anti-Proudhoniennes.  My 
dear  child,  this  means  your  success,  your  salvation,3  in- 
fluential friendships,  your  grandmother's  wishes  realised. 
Why  is  she  not  here  at  this  moment  ?  " 

The  next  morning  at  breakfast  even  the  usually  despon- 
dent Mme.  Lambert  was  gay,  although  she  could  not 
help  her  customary  gloom  breaking  out  in  the  exclamation, 
"  I  tremble  to  think  what  a  life  of  work  and  worry  this  will 
mean  for  you." 

Dr.  Lambert  was  eager  for  his  daughter  to  be  off  to  Paris, 
there  to  receive  the  congratulations  which  he  was  convinced 
were  awaiting  her.  And  he  was  not  mistaken.  Every 
day  brought  some  new  proof  of  the  attention  this  little 
volume  had  attracted.  The  book  was  widely  noticed 
in  the  press.  The  review  which  pleased  her  most,  even  to 
the  point,  she  confesses,  of  for  the  moment  making  her  lose 
her  head  (cet  article  me  monta  un  peu  a  la  tete),*  was  by 
Eugene  Pelletan,  in  La  Presse.  The  writer  came  to  see  her 
the  day  after  the  article's  appearance  :  and  from  that 
moment  he  became  one  of  her  most  faithful  and  devoted 
friends.  The  Steele,  the  periodical  which  had  published 
her  first  prose  effort,5  in  the  following  terms  noticed  her 
volume  only  a  few  days  after  its  publication — 

"  We  received  yesterday  a  book  destined  to  produce  a 
profound  sensation.  It  is  a  reply  to  Proudhon  and  to 
the  insulting  attack  upon  George  Sand  and  Daniel  Stern 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  79. 

2  Ibid.,  80. 

3  Referring  to  the  unhappiness  of  her  married  life, 

4  Souvenirs,  II  81. 

6  Her  reply  to.  Alphonse  Karr's  article  on  the  crinoline.     See  ante,  44. 


58  MADAME   ADAM 

contained  in  his  last  work.  This  book,  despite  its  virility, 
is  said  to  be  by  a  very  young  woman.  The  title  of 
the  volume  is  Idees  Anti-Proudhoniennes.  It  is  signed 
'  Juliette  Lamessine.' " 

Virility  is,  indeed,  the  dominating  feature  of  this, 
Juliette's  first  production,  as  it  was  to  be  of  all  her  work. 
She  writes  as  one  having  authority.  Her  style  is  crisp, 
terse,  dramatic,  vivid  and,  above  all,  forcible.  It  is  essen- 
tially the  style  of  a  woman  of  action  as  well  as  of  thought. 
In  controversy  she  has  always  been  at  her  best.  And  she 
could  not  possibly  have  found  a  subject  better  suited  to  her 
temperament  and  training  than  this  answer  to  Proudhon's 
attack  on  women.  That  in  this  year,  1858,  three  years 
before  John  Stuart  Mill  began  to  write  his  Subjection  of 
Women,  three  years  before  our  first  woman  doctor,  Mrs. 
Garrett  Anderson,  began  to  study  medicine,  a  young  woman 
of  twenty-two  should  have  been  able  to  present  a  bird's- 
eye  view  of  the  whole  field  of  feminist  reform;  that  she 
should,  in  such  forcible  terms,  have  enunciated  feminist 
principles  and  contended  for  those  rights  which  it  has 
required  half  a  century  of  conflict  to  win,  was  a  very  remark- 
able achievement. 

This  little  book  of  one  hundred  and  ninety-six  pages, 
polished  off  in  two  months,  naturally  makes  no  pretence  at 
being  an  adequate  answer  to  Proudhon's  great  work,  the 
result  of  years  of  laborious  effort.  It  is,  indeed,  only  with 
the  last  part  of  the  book,  that  treating  of  women  and  of 
marriage,  that  the  authoress  of  Idies  Anti-Proudhoniennes 
is  concerned.  "  Therein,"  she  writes,  "  are  things  which 
every  woman  who  knows  how  to  hold  a  pen  has  the  right 
to  regard  as  personal  insults,  and  it  is  to  these  personalities 
that  I  intend  to  reply." 

Nevertheless,  in  her  first  chapter,  entitled  "  Generalities," 
she  permits  herself  a  few  remarks  on  the  main  trend  of  her 
adversary's  book.  She  blames  the  narrow  dogmatism 
which  blinds  him  to  the  complexity  of  the  social  problem. 
A  pure  economist,  this  founder  of  the  People's  Bank  had 
attempted  to  solve  the  social  problem  in  terms  of  pounds, 
shillings  and  pence.  This  Proudhon  was  the  J.  A.  Hobson 
of  that  day.  His  absorption  in  the  idea  of  justice  caused 
him  to  forget  what  is  equally  important,  passion,  affection, 
solidarity  and  mercy.  "  There  is  no  heart  in  your  dia- 
lectics,"  writes  Juliette.     "  Now  to  understand  life,  you 


HER   FIRST   BOOK  59 

must  be  yourself  alive.  Had  you  the  most  powerful  brain 
in  the  universe,  you  would  never  comprehend  man  and 
humanity." 

"  Justice,"  wrote  Proudhon,  "  had  been  nothing,  it  must 
be  everything."  But  for  this  hide-bound  economist 
justice  could  exist  only  between  man  and  man,  for  all  men 
should  be  equal ;  but  between  man  and  woman,  who  must 
ever  be  unequal,  justice  need  not  be  considered,  for  man 
must  ever  dominate  woman.  And  why  ?  Because  man 
regarded  as  a  working  member  of  the  community  is  more 
productive  than  woman,  who  is  physically,  intellectually 
and  morally  man's  inferior.  Such  an  argument  gives  us 
pause  in  these  days  of  the  Great  War,  when  manufacturers 
are  telling  us  that  the  average  output  of  women  in  factories 
is  twenty  per  cent,  higher  than  that  of  men. 

Woman,  man's  inferior  physically,  maintains  Proudhon, 
must  necessarily  be  mentally  his  inferior  also.  For  physical 
strength  is  no  less  necessary  to  the  work  of  the  mind  than 
to  the  work  of  the  body.  Here  the  retort  was  obvious; 
and  we  may  be  sure  Proudhon' s  young  opponent  did  not 
miss  it.  "What,  M.  Proudhon,"  she  rejoins;  "then  a 
porter  will  be  a  better  thinker  than  a  philosopher.  M. 
Proudhon' s  God  is  obviously  the  dynamometer.  .  .  .  Force, 
always  force.  In  force  lies  the  millennium.  That  was  the 
opinion  of  the  Praetorian  Guard  when  they  chose  for 
emperor  the  great  Maximin,  because  he  was  stronger  than 
a  horse." 

Instead  of  the  subjection  of  woman  to  man,  which 
Proudhon  maintains  to  be  inevitable,  his  young  adversary 
contends  that  the  progress  of  society  requires  that  men  and 
women  shall  work  together  as  equals.  "  A  mere  glance 
at  the  history  of  mankind,"  she  argues,  "  will  suffice  to 
show  that  among  nations  civilisation  is  in  proportion  to 
the  part  played  by  woman,  to  her  influence,  to  her  moral 
worth;  and,  as  civilisation  increases,  the  greater  will  be 
the  value  set  upon  the  position  accorded  to  woman."  This 
is  an  argument  which  no  profound  observer  of  human 
nature  could  deny.  Unless  men  and  women  laugh  together 
you  cannot  have  that  true  comedy  which  is  the  very  salt 
of  the  intellectual  life,  was  the  opinion  of  George  Meredith.1 
"  Where  the  veil  is  over  women's  faces,"  he  wrote,  referring 
to  the  silence  of  comedy  among  Eastern  peoples,  "  you 

1  An  Essay  on  Comedy  and  the  Uses  of  the  Comic  Spirit  (1903),  57. 


60  MADAME   ADAM 

cannot  have  society,  without  which  the  senses  are  bar- 
barous, and  the  comic  spirit  is  driven  to  the  gutters  of 
grossness  to  slake  its  thirst."  Nous  avons  debrutalise  la 
societe  francaise  was  the  proudest  boast  of  Juliette's 
forerunner,  La  Marquise  de  Rambouillet,  foundress  of  the 
first  great  French  salon. 

Mme.  Lamessine  was  one  of  the  earliest  French  women 
writers  to  divine  that  which  this  war  is  proving  :  woman's 
capacity  for  work,  for  which  her  asserted  inferiority  to 
man  had  been  held  to  unfit  her. 

Anticipating  John  Stuart  Mill,  Mme.  Lamessine  de- 
manded that  all  the  liberal  professions  should  be  thrown 
open  to  women,  and  that  women  should  be  admitted  to  a 
share,  if  not  in  the  legislation  at  least  in  the  administration, 
of  their  country.  The  role  of  mayoress  she  considered 
particularly  appropriate  to  women.  She  demanded  the 
admission  of  women  to  those  conseils  de  prud'hommes 
which  in  France  regulate  disputes  between  employers 
and  employed. 

"  O  Nazareen  incorrigible !  "  she  exclaims,  when  her  adver- 
sary falls  a  prey  to  the  ancient  myth  that  woman  is  ever 
the  source  of  evil  and  the  mother  of  impurity.  "  Men 
who,  like  M.  Proudhon,"  she  continues,  "  desire  to  restore 
the  patriarchate  by  imprisoning  women  in  the  family  are 
des  abstractions  de  quintessence  who  are  blind  to  all  that 
is  going  on  around  them,  who  misjudge  the  collective 
life  which  is  daily  developing  new  needs,  engendering  new 
forces,  and  giving  rise  to  social  institutions  responding  to 
these  needs  and  organising  these  forces.  They  mean  well, 
doubtless,  and  they  think  they  are  serving  the  cause  of 
progress,  or  at  least  of  morality,  which  always  comes  to  be 
that  of  progress.  By  compelling  woman  to  shut  herself 
up  in  her  family,  by  limiting  her  to  the  role  of  wife  and 
mother,  they  hope  to  put  an  end  to  her  growing  passion 
for  luxury  and  dissipation.  .  .  .  But  they  are  mistaken. 
It  is  not  by  limiting  the  scope  of  her  activity  that  they  will 
arrest  this  disorder,  but  rather  by  opening  up  new  channels 
for  the  wholesome  play  of  her  energy.  Women  must  be 
educated  thoroughly,  and,  wherever  it  is  possible,  pro- 
fessionally. They  must  be  made  productive.  Work  alone 
has  emancipated  man.  Work  alone  can  emancipate  woman. 
Let  woman  provide  herself  by  honest  work  with  clothes 
which  will  adorn  and  become  her.     Then,  instead  of  drag- 


HER  FIRST   BOOK  61 

ging  in  the  dust  of  the  pavement  her  lace  shawls  and  her 
silk  skirts,  she  will  walk  free  and  proud  in  the  modesty  of 
clothes  which  will  reveal  her  beauty,  without  tarnishing  her 
virtue  or  selling  her  honour.  .  .  . 

"  But  do  not  let  me  be  accused  of  undervaluing  woman's 
role  in  the  family  :  I,  like  Proudhon,  believe  that  a  woman's 
first  duty  is  to  be  wife  and  mother.  But  I  maintain  that 
family  life  need  not  absorb  all  woman's  activities,  physical, 
moral  and  intellectual.  The  part  of  a  broody  hen  is 
honourable  without  doubt,  but  it  is  not  suited  to  every  one, 
neither  is  it  so  absorbing  as  it  is  represented." 

In  Juliette's  childhood  her  father  had  given  her  a  cate- 
chism embodying  the  principles  of  democratic  socialism. 
Now  in  the  last  pages  of  this  book  she  expressed  in  another 
catechism  her  views  of  society  and  of  women's  role  in  it. 

The  question  of  the  parliamentary  franchise  Mmc. 
Lamessine  did  not  discuss  in  this  volume.  It  is  obvious 
that  so  ardent  an  advocate  of  sex  equality  must  have 
believed  in  woman's  right  to  vote.  Woman's  suffrage,  we 
remember,  was  one  of  the  reforms  demanded  by  the  Miles. 
Andre's  pupils  when,  in  1848,  Juliette  marshalled  them  in 
the  playground  at  Chauny  beneath  the  banner  of  her 
father's  social  democratic  handkerchief.  But  the  so-called 
universal,  in  reality  manhood,  suffrage  of  1851  had  led  to 
the  Empire,  and  Mine.  Lamessine  abhorred  the  Empire  : 
henceforth  therefore  she  placed  no  great  faith  in  the  people's 
vote,  not  even  if,  as  she  believed,  in  all  justice  it  should  do, 
the  people  included  women. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SALON    LIFE    DURING   THE   SECOND    EMPIRE 

1858—1863 

"  Le  Salon  etait  alors  .  .  .  V ambition  supreme  de  la  Parisienne,  la  con- 
solation de  sa  maturite,  la  gloire  de  sa  vieillesse." — Daniel  Stern  (la  Comtess© 
d'Agoult). 

Dr.  Lambert  was  right.  Juliette's  book  brought  her 
influential  friendships  and  distinguished  acquaintances. 
It  flung  her  right  into  the  whirl  of  Parisian  literary  and 
political  society. 

The  two  women  writers,  whom  Idees  Anti-Proudho- 
niennes  had  defended,  both  wrote  to  thank  their  young 
champion.  Of  George  Sand's  letter  and  of  the  friendship 
which  some  years  later  ensued  between  her  and  Juliette 
we  shall  hear  much  in  another  chapter.  La  Comtesse 
d'Agoult  (Daniel  Stern),  after  having  read  Juliette's  book, 
wrote  to  her — 

"  It  is  surprising,  sir,  that  you  should  have  assumed  a 
woman's  name,  while  we  women  write  under  masculine 
pseudonyms."  x 

"  I  replied  to  her,"  writes  Juliette,  "  that  I  was  a  woman, 
and  very  much  a  woman." 

Then  there  followed  an  invitation  to  one  of  the  great 
lady's  evenings.  This  was  a  high  honour.  For  Mme. 
d'Agoult' s  salon  in  the  Rue  Presbourg  was  not  only  the 
centre  of  the  Republican  opposition  to  the  Empire,  it  was 
a  brilliant  and  cosmopolitan  assembly,  a  meeting-place 
for  many  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  the  day.  Renan, 
Littre  and  Emile  de  Girardin,  here  foregathered  with 
Emerson,  Heine  and  Kossuth.  The  life  of  Mme.  d'Agoult 
herself  had  been  as  eventful  as  that  of  any  of  her  guests. 
Born  at  Frankfort  in  1805,  she  was  the  daughter  of  a 
German  banker's  daughter  and   the   Comte  de  Flavigny, 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  83.  ldk.es  Anti-Proudhoniennes  was  signed  "  Juliette 
Lamessine." 

62 


SALON  LIFE  DURING  SECOND  EMPIRE     63 

a  French  emigre,  who  had  been  page  to  Marie  Antoinette. 
When  the  Revolution  had  subsided,  the  Comte  de  Flavigny 
brought  his  wife  and  his  daughter,  Marie,  back  to  France. 
Marie  soon  grew  into  an  intelligent  and  beautiful  girl  of 
Germanic  type — tall,  golden-haired  and  blue-eyed.  Having 
set  her  heart  upon  a  man  who  married  some  one  else,  she 
refused  offer  after  offer  until  well  on  in  what  was  then 
regarded  as  spinsterhood.  At  the  age  of  twenty-two  she 
submitted  to  a  mariage  de  convenance  with  the  Comte 
d'Agoult.  In  a  loveless  life  she  found  consolation  in  that 
joy  of  every  clever  Parisienne's  heart,  the  creation  of  a 
salon.  She  delighted  to  gather  the  elite  of  the  aristocracy 
round  her  in  her  town  house  on  the  Quai  Malaquais,  facing 
the  Louvre,  or  in  her  country  chateau  of  Croissy,  fifteen 
miles  out  of  Paris.  Soon  this  "  Corinne  of  the  Quai 
Malaquais,"  as  she  was  called,  became  one  of  the  most 
attractive  of  Parisian  hostesses.  She  aspired  even  to 
emulate  the  seductive  Mme.  Recamier,  whose  salon  at 
L'Abbaye-aux-Bois  was  then  at  the  height  of  its  glory. 
But  the  Comtesse  realised  that  without  le  grand  homme, 
in  other  words,  without  a  literary  lion,  a  salon  is  nothing. 
Mme.  Recamier  had  her  Chateaubriand.  Mme.  d'Agoult 
selected  for  her  "  great  man  "  the  poet,  Alfred  de  Vigny. 
So,  while  Chateaubriand  was  entrancing  Mme.  Recamier' s 
guests  by  the  reading  of  his  Memoirs  d' Outre  Tombe,  the 
Countess  invited  her  friend,  Alfred  de  Vigny,  to  read  his 
new  poem,  La  Frigate,  to  an  assembly  of  ambassadresses, 
duchesses,  and  countesses  at  Croissy.  But  alas !  de 
Vigny,  though  a  gifted  poet,  was  no  reader.  And  the 
chilling  silence  at  the  end  of  the  reading  was  broken 
by  the  freezing  question  :  "Is  your  friend  an  amateur, 
madame?"  "Decidedly,"  said  de  Vigny  to  his  hostess, 
"  my  frigate  has  been  shipwrecked  in  your  salon." 

But  a  worse  shipwreck  than  that  of  La  Frigate  was  to 
attend  the  fair  chatelaine  of  Croissy.  Some  one  had 
described  this  statuesque  beauty  in  terms  she  herself  found 
not  inaccurate  as  "  six  inches  of  snow  on  twenty  feet  of 
lava."  And  the  lava  was  soon  to  melt  the  snow.  Mme. 
d'Agoult' s  apparent  coldness  vanished  before  the  noontide 
heat  of  an  irresistible  attraction,  that  of  the  most  fatal 
Don  Juan  of  Europe,  none  other  than  the  musician,  Franz 
Liszt,  who  had  already  melted  many  a  distinguished 
feminine  heart. 


64  MADAME  ADAM 

Casting  to  the  winds  her  social  reputation,  her  marriage 
vows,  and  her  maternal  affection  (she  had  borne  the  Comte 
d'Agoult  two  children),  she  suffered  herself  to  be  carried 
off  from  a  ball,  and  spent  the  next  years  of  her  life  wandering 
over  Europe  with  her  lover. 

Then,  having  quarrelled  with  Liszt,  she  returned  to 
Paris  in  1846,  and  settled  down,  in  the  Rue  Presbourg,  to 
write  under  the  pseudonym  of  "  Daniel  Stern." 

Of  course  all  the  doors  of  her  aristocratic  friends  in  the 
Faubourg  St.  Germain  were  closed  against  her.  But  even 
before  her  flight  she  had  made  some  friends  in  the  bour- 
geoisie ;  and  among  them  were  M.  and  Mme.  Emile  de 
Girardin.  Mme.  de  Girardin,  the  Countess  had  known 
when,  as  the  clever  and  beautiful  Delphine  Gay,  she  was 
the  poetess  laureate  of  the  Restoration.  Now,  married 
to  Emile  de  Girardin,  the  Lord  Northcliffe  of  that  day, 
Delphine  was  one  of  the  most  successful  of  Parisian  hos- 
tesses. While  her  mysterious  husband,  that  Napoleon  of 
the  Press,  that  homme  fatal,  of  whose  origin  no  one  was 
sure,  muffled  himself  in  a  shawl  and  slumbered  in  a  corner 
of  the  salon  until  such  time  as  he  should  go  to  his  news- 
paper,1 the  vivacious  Mme.  de  Girardin  gathered  round 
her  all  the  great  literary  celebrities  of  the  hour,  Lamartine, 
Victor  Hugo,  Balzac,  Theophile  Gautier  and  Eugene  Sue. 
And  in  this  brilliant  circle,  the  Countess,  ostracised  else- 
where, was  made  warmly  welcome.  Here  she  formed  her 
Republican  opinions,  here  she  came  into  contact  with  the 
leading  figures  of  that  Revolution  of  1848,  of  which  she 
was  to  become  the  historian.2  Here,  in  Mme.  de  Girardin's 
salon  in  the  Rue  Lafitte,  the  Countess  replenished  her 
emptied  visiting-list  and  gathered  material  for  her  second 
salon. 

With  most  of  this  story  Juliette  had  become  acquainted 
through  the  gossip  of  Mme.  Fauvety's  drawing-room.  And 
what  she  did  not  already  know  was  told  her  by  Mme. 
d'Agoult' s  friend,  de  Ronchaud,  whom  the  Countess  had 
sent  to  escort  the  young  Mme.  Lamessine  to  the  Rue  Pres- 
bourg. Mme.  d'Agoult  could  not  have  assigned  Juliette 
a  more  congenial  cavalier.  De  Ronchaud  was  a  fervent 
classicist,  one  of  the  founders  of  that  new  Hellenic  school 

1  See  Daniel  Stern,  Mes  Souvenirs,  311. 

*  Daniel  Stem,  Histoire  de  la  Revolution  de  1848,  2  vols.,  Paris,  Char- 
pentier,  1862. 


SALON  LIFE  DURING  SECOND  EMPIRE     65 

which  was  just  then  coming  into  prominence.  His  delight- 
ful talk  about  Greek  art  in  the  book-shop  of  Pere  France 
on  the  Quai  Voltaire  had  seduced  young  Anatole  into 
playing  truant  from  the  College  Stanislas  in  order  to  spend 
a  whole  day  wandering  through  the  Galerie  des  Antiques 
in  the  Louvre.  Juliette  found  de  Ronchaud's  conversa- 
tion equally  entrancing.  "  Our  first  talk,"  she  writes, 
"  was  one  long  hymn  to  Greece."  De  Ronchaud  promised 
to  introduce  his  young  friend  to  other  Hellenists,  and  he 
foretold  that  together  they  would  bring  about  a  second 
Renaissance. 

What  an  all-important  event  was  Juliette's  first  evening 
in  Mine.  d'Agoult's  salon  may  easily  be  imagined.  She 
found  the  Countess,  like  many  other  distinguished  French- 
women, anticipating  her  age,  for  although  she  was  only 
fifty-three,  she  wore  over  her  silver  hair  a  light  black  lace 
mantilla.  At  the  first  glance  she  gave  Juliette  the  impres- 
sion of  strength,  almost  virile,  and  yet  of  femininity. 
"  J'ai  atteint  Vdge  d'homme,"  she  used  to  say,  echoing 
Catherine  of  Russia's  sentiment  when  she  welcomed 
Diderot  with  the  words  :  "As  man  to  man  we  can  discuss 
anything."  Tall  and  superbly  graceful,  it  seemed  to 
Juliette  that  she  had  never  seen  a  more  complete  great 
lady.  When  Mme.  d'Agoult  described  herself  as  a  Demo- 
crat, it  was  difficult  to  suppress  a  smile,  so  anomalous  on 
her  lips  sounded  such  a  word.  Her  bearing,  the  pose  of 
her  head,  her  features,  the  lines  of  her  face  which  betrayed 
no  trace  of  the  tempestuous  passion  that  had  swept  over 
her  in  youth;  everything  about  Mme.  d'Agoult  was 
aristocratic. 

In  the  general  conversation  of  her  salon  the  Countess 
took  little  part,  but,  seated  on  the  right  of  the  fireplace, 
she  would  carry  on  a  tete-a-tete  with  some  single  person. 
Unlike  many  another  salon  lady,  Mme.  du  Deffand  or 
Mme.  de  Stael  or  Juliette  herself,  she  was  no  maker  of 
mots  ;  nor  was  she  ready  with  repartee.  She  herself  could 
never  understand  how  she  came  by  her  reputation  of  a 
wit ;  x  for  she  knew  that  she  never  appeared  at  her  best  in 
conversation.  She  was  too  reserved,  too  self-conscious 
to  be  a  vivacious  talker,  and  she  could  only  be  eloquent 
when  intense  feeling  took  her  out  of  herself.2 

Grave  and  a  trifle  solemn,  her  salon  was  frequented  by 
1  Daniel  Stern,  Mes  Souvenirs,  346.  *  Ibid.,  349. 

F 


66  MADAME   ADAM 

serious  students,  such  as  Littre\  who  rarely  went  anywhere 
else,  as  well  as  by  more  sociable  philosophers  like  Renan. 
The  subjects  discussed  were  politics,  philosophy,  art  (music 
especially),  serious  literature,  but  seldom  plays  or  novels. 
The  guests  were  too  addicted  to  monologue ;  and  too  often 
some  weighty  personage,  leaning  against  the  mantel- 
piece would  discourse  at  such  length  that  his  talk  became  a 
veritable  lecture.  Sometimes  Mme.  d'Agoult  would  read 
a  letter  from  some  foreign  correspondent,  a  famous  revolu- 
tionary like  Mazzini  or  Kossuth ;  for  she  had  relations  with 
the  whole  of  Europe,  including  those  illustrious  Frenchmen 
whom  Louis  Napoleon's  coup  d'etat  of  December  1851  had 
driven  into  exile. 

Though  all  Mme.  d'Agoult's  friends  were  republicans 
and  therefore  opposed  to  the  Empire,  they  were  not  all 
agreed  as  to  the  best  way  of  conducting  the  opposition. 
About  this  year,  1858,  two  distinct  parties  were  beginning 
to  define  themselves  :  the  extreme  republicans  who,  like 
Juliette  and  her  father,  believed  in  keeping  entirely  aloof 
from  imperial  politics,  and  who  regarded  as  traitors  to 
Republicanism  any  who  should,  no  matter  for  what  purpose, 
consent  to  swear  allegiance  to  the  Emperor.  These  un- 
compromising anti-imperialists  went  by  the  name  of 
abstentionistes.  But  there  was  also  coming  into  existence 
a  more  moderate  party  led  by  Mme.  d'Agoult's  son-in-law, 
Emile  Ollivier.1  They  held  that  opposition  to  the  Empire 
could  be  most  effectively  carried  out  by  entering  the  Corps 
Legislatif,  for  which  it  was  necessary  to  take  the  oath  of 
allegiance.  This  party,  known  as  sermentistes,  was  to  grow 
in  strength  until  it  succeeded  in  forcing  its  so-called 
Liberalism  on  the  Emperor,  and  establishing  what  is  known 
as  V Empire  Liberal. 

Juliette's  uncompromising  nature,  as  we  have  seen, 
made  it  impossible  for  her  to  approve  of  the  Sermentistes. 
And  she  loses  no  opportunity  of  ridiculing  les  petits 
Olliviers,  as  Ollivier's  followers  were  called,  when  they 
appeared  in  Mme.  d'Agoult's  salon.  Indeed,  the  Countess 
herself  opposed  her  son-in-law's  policy;  and,  after  her 
daughter's  death,  there  was  an  open  breach  between 
them. 

From  the  very  first  the  pretty,  vivacious  Mme.  Lamessine 
made  a  highly  favourable  impression  on  Mme.  d'Agoult. 

1  He  had  married  Blandine,  daughter  of  Mme.  d'Agoult  and  Liszt. 


SALON  LIFE  DURING  SECOND  EMPIRE     67 

"  She  took  the  trouble,"  writes  Juliette,  "  to  convert  a 
little  provincial  into  a  society  lady.1  She  encouraged  me 
to  talk  of  my  work.  When  you  are  perplexed,  come  and 
tell  me,"  she  would  say.  "  I  shall  be  delighted  to  give 
you  the  benefit  of  my  observation  of  mankind  and  of  all 
I  have  learnt  in  the  hard  school  of  experience." 

Soon  Juliette's  invitation  to  the  Countess's  evenings  was 
extended  to  those  smaller  intimate  parties,  which  met 
around  the  luncheon  or  the  dinner-table.  On  these  occa- 
sions the  Hellenist,  Louis  de  Ronchaud,  was  almost 
invariably  her  fellow-guest. 

Mme.  d'Agoult  laughed  at  Juliette's  passion  for  anti- 
quity. "  My  dear  child,"  she  would  say,  "  you  must  be 
of  your  time.  At  your  age  you  ought  not  to  be  so  antique. 
...  I  shall  take  you  to  the  Opera  Bouffes  "  (the  Italian 
theatre).     "  That  will  modernise  you  a  little." 

"  For  the  love  of  Greece,  remain  Greek,"  pleaded  de 
Ronchaud.  But,  indeed,  there  was  no  fear  of  the  Opera 
Bouffes  perverting  Juliette  from  Hellenism;  for  Offen- 
bach's caricaturing  of  her  Homeric  deities  in  Orphee  aux 
Enfers  so  outraged  her  Grecian  sympathies  that  Mme. 
d'Agoult  was  constrained  to  make  amends  by  inviting  her 
to  a  neo-Grecian  dinner.  "  It  will  be  a  pagan  party," 
the  Countess  said.  "  De  Ronchaud  has  arranged  it." 
The  other  guests  were  two  brilliant  Hellenists,  Menard  and 
Saint  Victor.  They  began  by  discussing  the  now  much- 
disputed  importance  of  a  classical  education.  These  neo- 
Grecians  were  firmly  persuaded  that  the  classics  alone  can 
inculcate  those  superior  ideas  of  justice  and  heroism, 
which  are  all  the  more  salutary  because  for  ages  they 
have  permeated  the  race.  Naturally  they  lamented  over 
what  seemed  to  them  the  decadence  of  French  society 
under  the  Empire.  Menard  maintained  that  periods  of 
intellectual  decadence  are  invariably  periods  of  mechanical 
progress  and  of  political  despotism. 

Then  the  worshippers  of  ancient  Hellas  fell  with  equal 
zest  and  vivacity  to  discussing  the  antiquity  of  the  Orphic 
mysteries. 

How  intensely  alive  for  Juliette  was  this  Hellenic  past 
she  has  proved  over  and  over  again  in  her  literary  work, 
and  most  notably  in  three  novels  she  was  to  produce  some 

1  Mme.  Adam.  Souvenirs,  I.  108-9,  "  Elle  prenait  la  peine  de  faire  cTune 
petite  provinciale  une  dame." 


68  MADAME   ADAM 

years  later,  Laide  (1878),  Grecque  (1879),  and  Paienne 
(1883).1 

That  great  wave  of  philosophic  speculation  which  was 
sweeping  through  France  could  not  fail  to  affect  so  intel- 
lectual a  salon  as  Mme.  d'Agoult's.  An  earlier  dinner- 
party, Juliette's  first  at  the  Rue  Presbourg,  had  been  a 
veritable  symposium  of  philosophers.  The  great  Littre,2 
the  eloquent  exponent  of  Comte's  philosophy,  was  the  lion 
of  the  evening.  His  famous  Etymological  Dictionary  of  the 
French  Language  was  then  going  through  the  Press. 

"  Littre,"  writes  Juliette,  "  inspired  me  with  a  sentiment 
which  was  almost  worship."  When  they  had  met  before 
they  had  talked  of  Greece.  The  editor  of  Hippocrates  and 
Pliny,  though  laughing  at  his  young  friend's  fervent 
passion  for  ancient  Hellas,  had  been  able  to  reveal  to  her 
things  in  the  Iliad  which  neither  she  nor  her  father 
had  dreamed  of. 

Among  the  other  guests  were  De  Ronchaud,  of  course; 
Hippolyte  Carnot,  son  of  the  "  Organiser  of  Victory,"  and 
editor  of  one  of  the  leading  magazines  of  the  day,  La  Revue 
Encyclopediqne ;  3  Dupont-White,  the  friend  of  John  Stuart 
Mill,  a  bold  thinker  and  an  ardent  apologist  of  centralisa- 
tion in  government.  In  the  presence  of  such  an  august 
philosophic  trio  Juliette  for  the  first  part  of  the  dinner 
was  content  to  listen;  and  we  may  be  sure  that,  like  her 
illustrious  namesake,  Mme.  Recamier,  she  listened  "  with 
seduction."  But  towards  the  end  of  the  evening  we  find 
her  warmed  to  take  part  in  the  discussion.     Although  she 

1  See  post,  209. 

2  Born  in  1801,  Littre  had  studied  and  qualified  as  a  doctor  of  medicine, 
though  he  never  practised  his  profession.  He,  like  most  of  Mme.  d'Agoult's 
friends,  was  a  "  man  of  1848."  Immediately  after  the  Revolution  he 
served  for  a  few  months  as  unpaid  municipal  councillor  of  Paris.  But, 
disillusioned  after  the  violent  suppression  of  the  July  rising,  he  had 
retired  from  office  and  since  then  had  lived  in  retirement. 

3  Hippolyte  Carnot,  born  in  1801,  had  accompanied  his  father  into 
exile.  After  the  elder  Carnot's  death,  Hippolyte  returned  to  France. 
There  he  became  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Saint- Simonian  group  of  philo- 
sophers, see  post,  86-90.  During  the  Revolution  of  1848  Carnot  was 
Minister  of  Education.  Like  Littre,  disillusioned  by  the  reactionary  move- 
ment which  followed  the  July  insurrection,  he  resigned.  After  the  coup 
d'etat  of  December  1851,  he  went  into  voluntary  exile.  During  his  absence 
he  was  elected  member  of  the  Corps  Legislatif.  But  although  he  returned 
to  France,  he  refused  to  take  the  oath  to  the  Empire,  thus  forfeiting  his 
seat.     Since  then  he  too  had  lived  in  retirement. 


SALON  LIFE  DURING  SECOND  EMPIRE     69 

admired,  almost  worshipped  Littre,  she  could  not  tolerate 
his  positivism.  Positivism  suggested  Comte,  and  Comte 
suggested  the  husband  whose  conduct  was  rendering  her 
domestic  life  unbearable.  But  Littre  seemed  to  her  to 
out- Comte  even  Comte ;  for  Littre  would  stifle  the  slightest 
breath  of  idealism.  While  Comte  admitted  that  there 
are  as  many  arguments  for  as  against  the  existence  of  an 
unknowable,  Littre  seemed  to  Juliette  absolutely  to  deny 
it.  This  may  have  been  so  at  that  time;  but  surely 
Littre  must  later  have  become  less  dogmatic.  For  we 
remember  Paul  Bourget's  description  of  "  Old  Littre  "  as 
a  saint  who  spoke  eloquently  of  that  ocean  of  mystery 
washing  our  very  shores,  but  over  the  waters  of  which  we 
have  no  barque  to  carry  us.1 

When  Littre  maintained  that  as  "  light  cannot  exist 
without  a  luminous  body,  neither  can  life  without  organs 
nor  spirit  without  matter,"  Juliette  protested  that  vehicles 
are  not  essences.  "  The  Homeric  past,"  she  added,  "  presents 
us  with  a  poetic  conception  of  things  which  encourages  the 
belief  that  the  future  has  something  better  in  store  than 
your  immutable  law  and  its  brutality." 

"  Yes,  I  agree,"  replied  Littre,  "  the  immutable  law  is 
brutal  in  its  partial  manifestations,  but  its  general  action, 
based  on  the  unvarying  conditions  of  proportion  and 
order,  inspires  us  with  the  idea  of  absolute  justice." 

Against  such  determinism  Juliette  revolted  with  all  the 
fervour  of  her  rebellious  and  romantic  soul. 

"  I  protest,"  she  said.  "  If  I  feel  myself  a  mere  atom 
of  dust  swept  about  by  the  wind  and  not  an  intelligence 
dominating  matter,  why  should  I  make  any  effort?  " 

"  Because  action  is  the  law  of  humanity." 

"  Ah  !  but  for  me  belief  in  man  led  by  the  spirit  and 
nature  by  the  divine  is  a  necessity."  Here,  in  these  words 
indicating  so  plainly  the  wish  to  believe,  lies  the  key  to 
Juliette's  whole  mental  and  spiritual  evolution.  It  was  a 
key  which  her  philosopher  friends  were  quick  to  grasp. 

"  We  shall  see  this  pagan  turning  Christian,"  said 
Littre. 

"  And  I  should  not  be  at  all  sorry,"  remarked  Mme. 
d'Agoult,  "  if  it  were  only  for  the  pleasure  of  exasperating 
that  Hellenising  Ronchaud." 

Juliette  and  her  hostess  would  appear  to  have  been  the 
1  Le  Disciple,  Preface. 


70  MADAME   ADAM 

only  women  at  these  dinner-parties.  There  may  have 
been  others,  whom  Juliette  does  not  mention.  But  Mme. 
d'Agoult  was  essentially  a  man's  woman.  The  wives  of  her 
guests,  with  very  few  exceptions,  did  not  interest  her. 
There  were,  however,  a  few  clever  and  distinguished  women 
who  frequented  her  salon.  There  was  the  masculine  Mme. 
Royer,  who  was  as  much  of  a  blue-stocking  as  her  friend 
Jenny  d'Hericourt,  and  whom  Juliette  equally  detested; 
there  was  the  heroic  Mme.  Hippolyte  Carnot,  the  Cornelia 
of  French  republicans,  who,  when  her  husband  was  re- 
sisting Louis  Napoleon  in  December  1851,  said,  "  If  you 
die  you  will  bequeath  to  your  sons  the  example  you  in- 
herited from  your  father."  Then  there  was  that  queen  of 
raconteuses,  the  witty  but  rather  Rabelaisian  Comtesse  de 
Pierreclos,  the  poet  Lamartine's  niece.  This  tall  and 
powerfully-built  lady,  with  large  prominent  features,  was 
one  of  the  most  striking  figures  in  salon  society.  She  was 
pleased  to  joke  about  her  own  appearance.  Being  asked 
what  part  she  would  take  in  a  play,  she  replied,  "  I  think 
mine  should  be  the  part  of  the  bust  of  Louis  Philippe." 
But  if  other  people  attempted  to  make  fun  of  her  she 
resented  it  strongly.  Thus  when  she  said  she  had  met  a 
certain  person  face  to  face,  which  in  French  is  "  nose  to 
nose,"  and  some  one  ejaculated,  "  Then  it  must  have  been 
yours  that  conquered,"  she  was  on  the  point  of  bursting 
into  tears.1  But  Mme.  de  Pierreclos  passed  as  quick  as 
lightning  from  tears  to  laughter.  She  and  Juliette  were 
equally  exuberant  and  impulsive.  Perhaps  it  was  this 
that  made  them  sworn  friends.  They  corresponded 
regularly,  and  during  Juliette's  frequent  absences  from 
Paris  she  depended  on  her  friend  to  keep  her  au  courant 
with  all  the  doings  of  the  metropolis,  with  the  latest  mot, 
the  last  scandal,  the  newest  play  and  the  best  music. 

For  Juliette's  interests  were  far  from  being  concentrated 
on  philosophy  or  even  on  neo-Hellenism.  Plays,  picture- 
shows,  fancy-dress  balls  and  the  opera  crowded  her  days, 
leaving  her,  one  might  have  thought,  no  time  for  literary 
work.  Nevertheless,  she  had  contrived  before  1863  to 
produce  a  novel,  he  Mandarin,  three  volumes  of  short 
stories,  Mon  Village,  Recits  a" une  Paysanne,  Voyage  autour 
du  Grand  Pin,  besides  pamphlets  on  public  questions  and 
newspaper  articles. 

1  Memoires  de  la  Comtesse  Diane,  146-7. 


JULIETTE   LAMBER 
From  a  portrait  by  Leopold  Flameng,  1860 


SALON  LIFE  DURING  SECOND  EMPIRE    71 

Among  all  these  various  pleasures  and  duties  one  wonders 
what  became  of  Juliette's  little  daughter  Alice.  The  child 
was  now  old  enough  to  notice  the  strained  relations  between 
her  parents,  and  in  order  to  remove  her  from  the  unedifying 
disputes  between  her  mother  and  father,  Alice  had  been 
sent  to  her  grandparents  at  Chauny. 

As  far  as  her  literary  and  social  life  was  concerned 
Juliette's  most  ambitious  dreams  were  about  to  be  realised. 
She  was  on  the  way  to  become  a  queen  of  society.  True, 
she  had  enemies,  chiefly  pedants  like  Mme.  d'Hericourt 
and  Mile.  Royer,  or  the  friends  of  Proudhon.  No  one 
so  convinced,  so  outspoken  as  Juliette  could  avoid  arousing 
opposition.  But,  with  the  exception  of  that  little  coterie, 
all  hearts  were  hers,  won  by  her  good  nature,  her  charm, 
her  genius  for  friendship,  her  vivacity,  her  intelligence  and 
her  loveliness. 

A  leading  French  journalist,  now  no  longer  living,  who 
followed  Mme.  Adam's  career  with  interest  and  admiration, 
told  me  that  in  her  youth  she  was  entrancingly  beautiful. 
Referring  to  the  salon  she  was  shortly  to  establish,  to  the 
princes,  ambassadors,  writers  and  artists  who  crowded 
round  the  brilliant  young  hostess,  that  journalist  said  : 
"  We  were  all  in  love  with  her." 

Moreover  Juliette,  though  an  advocate  of  the  rights  of 
woman  in  days  when  feminists  tended  to  affect  masculine 
attire,  discarded  none  of  her  feminity.  It  has  always  been 
her  opinion  that  Pour  une  femme,  c 'est  line  inferioriti  que 
se  defeminiser .  She  who  had  been  independent  enough  to 
abstain  from  the  crinoline,  knew  how  to  dress.  One  of 
her  gowns,  velvet  gorge  de  tourterelle,  with  large  steel  buttons, 
worn  at  Alphonse  Daudet's  dinner-party,  made  such  an 
impression  on  Edmond  de  Goncourt  that  he  described  it 
in  detail,  in  the  pages  of  that  Journal  which  has  now  become 
a  classic.1 

It  is  not  surprising  that  more  than  one  distinguished 
artist — Flameng,  Charpentier,  for  example — painted  Mme. 
Lamessine's  portrait.  Charpentier's  picture  was  exhibited 
in  the  salon.  Mme.  d'Agoult's  friend,  the  famous  sculptor, 
Adam  Salomon,  photographed  her  in  a  Charlotte  Corday 
costume,  which  she  had  worn  at  a  fancy-dress  ball,  and 
wished  to  model  her  bust.  The  photograph  was  a  success, 
not  so  the  bust.  After  having  made  many  attempts  in 
1  Journal  des  Goncourt,  VI.  184. 


72  MADAME   ADAM 

clay,  the  sculptor  gave  it  up.  Some  time  later,  however, 
when  Mme.  Lamessine  was  in  his  studio,  he  persuaded  her 
to  let  him  take  a  caste  of  her  face.  "  It  was  horrible," 
she  writes.1  "  I  thought  I  should  have  been  suffocated ; 
and  I  felt  as  if  my  eyebrows  and  eyelashes  were  being 
torn  off.  The  agony  of  those  few  seconds  when  Adam 
Salomon  was  piercing  holes  for  my  nostrils  and  making 
slits  for  my  lips,  when  I  could  hardly  breath,  pursued  me 
for  months."  "  I  quite  understand,"  she  adds,  "  that 
a  cast  of  the  head  and  face  is  not  usually  taken  until 
after  death." 

It  was  at  the  Adam  Salomons'  that  Juliette  met  Lamar- 
tine.  He  came  there  every  day  :  and  it  saddened  her  to 
see  this  great  poet  worried  by  financial  embarrassments 
and  attempting  to  retrieve  his  fallen  fortunes  by  soliciting 
subscriptions  to  his  Cours  Familier  de  Litterature.  Ce 
pauvre  Lamartine,  wrote  the  witty  Mme.  Mohl,  ce  rtest 
plus  une  lyre,  cest  une  tire-lire  (a  sealed  earthen  pot  with  a 
slit  into  which  a  peasant  puts  his  money).  The  poet's 
fine,  handsome  countenance  still  lit  up  when  he  spoke  of 
art,  letters  or  politics,  but  that  unhappily  was  but  seldom.2 

There  are  those  for  whom  socially  the  Second  Empire 
signifies  little  more  than  hollow  splendour,  ostentatious 
display  and  vulgar  luxury.  No  doubt  these  tendencies 
were  strongly  marked;  but  at  the  same  time  there  flour- 
ished a  rich  and  original  development  of  art,  music  and 
literature.  When  Juliette  was  making  her  debut  in  Paris 
drawing-rooms,  Alexandre  Dumas'  La  Dame  aux  Camelias 
and  his  Fils  Naturel  were  being  played  at  Le  Theatre 
Francais,  Millet  and  Puvis  de  Chavannes  were  exhibiting 
their  first  pictures  in  the  Salon,  Renan  was  writing  his 
Vie  de  Jesus,  Erckmann  and  Chatrian  their  Napoleonic 
romances,  and  Victor  Hugo,  in  exile,  his  Legende  des  Siecles. 
Those  were  the  days  when  two  of  the  greatest  composers 
of  the  modern  world,  Berlioz  and  Wagner,  were  rivalling 
one  another  on  the  Parisian  operatic  stage. 

Juliette  first  met  Berlioz  at  the  representation  of 
Orpheo  at  the  Theatre  Lyrique.  Mme.  Viardot's  sublime 
rendering  of  the  part  of  Orpheo  avenged  Juliette  and  her 
neo-Grecian  friends,  Menard  and  de  Ronchaud,  who 
accompanied  her,  for  the  insults  Offenbach  had  offered  to 
their  Greek  gods.  During  the  song  "  I  have  lost  my 
1  Souvenirs,  II.  155.  2  Ibid.,  147. 


SALON  LIFE  DURING  SECOND  EMPIRE     73 

Eurydice,"  Juliette,  overcome  by  emotion,  paid  the  singer 
the  superb  compliment  of  momentarily  losing  conscious- 
ness. When  Berlioz  himself  came  round  to  their  box  at 
the  end  of  the  act,  Menard  did  not  neglect  to  tell  him  of  the 
beautiful  Mme.  Lamessine's  little  swoon.  Highly  flattered 
the  composer  took  her  hand  in  his  and  kept  it  there.1 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  it  is  quite  beautiful.  .  .  .  Orpheo  is 
near  enough  to  the  real  Orpheo  for  the  expression  of  grief 
rendered  as  we  have  just  heard  it  to  overwhelm  the 
senses." 

Juliette  appreciated  Wagner's  art,  though  she  was  far 
too  much  of  a  Latin  to  prefer  this  Teuton  to  Berlioz. 
"  Berlioz,"  she  wrote,  "  is  the  initiator,  he  stands  above 
all  others.  He  can  well  afford  to  let  the  Wagnerian 
fanatics  assert  that  Wagner's  is  the  music  of  the  future." 

Juliette  first  met  Wagner  and  heard  him  play  at  the 
Comtesse  de  Charnace's.  The  Comtesse  was  Mme.  d'Agoult's 
daughter  by  her  husband,  the  Comte  d'Agoult,  and, 
strangely  enough  it  may  seem  to  us,  she  was  in  the  habit 
of  receiving  her  half-sister,  daughter  of  Liszt  and  Mme. 
d'Agoult,  and  wife  of  the  celebrated  pianist,  Hans  von 
Biilow.  Von  Billow  was  Wagner's  shadow;  and  it  was 
Von  Biilow  who  brought  Wagner  to  the  Rue  Vaugirard. 
About  twenty-five  people  were  present.  Juliette  thought 
Wagner's  enormous  head  not  lacking  in  character,  at 
least  the  upper  part  of  it.  His  forehead  was  broad  and 
high.  His  questioning  eyes  were  now  tender,  now  hard; 
but  his  ugly  mouth,  with  its  sarcastic  expression,  seemed 
to  press  back  his  cheeks  and  like  nut-crackers  to  bring 
together  an  authoritative  chin  and  an  arrogant  nose. 
She  found  him  caustic  and  witty  as  he  talked  of  everything 
and  seemed  to  know  everything.  Then  suddenly  he  would 
become  vulgar,  personal,  conceited. 

He  played  the  Prelude  to  Lohengrin.  "  Never  has 
anything  been  written  to  equal  it,"  exclaimed  Von  Biilow. 

"  I  alone,"  said  Wagner  .  .  .,  "  can  do  these  things. 
No  one  else  in  the  world  would  dare  to  attempt  them." 

Then  laughing,  and,  with  a  strong  Germanic  accent, 
he  added  :  "  People  can  never  tell  whether  I  am  hydro- 
cephalus or  a  man  of  genius." 

"  Something  of  the  first,"  whispered  Juliette  to  Mme. 
d'Agoult. 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  214. 


74  MADAME   ADAM 

"  A  great  deal  of  the  second,"  rejoined  the  Countess, 
rather  severely. 

Wagner,  who  was  extremely  quick  of  hearing,  had 
caught  this  whispered  conversation. 

"  He  gave  to  each  of  us,"  writes  Juliette,  "  the  '  thank 
you  '  we  deserved."  Then  he  talked  well  of  Parisians  and 
their  mocking  spirit.  He  said  how  it  grieved  him  not  to 
be  understood  in  France,  and  to  have  for  a  rival  any  one  so 
eminent  as  Berlioz. 

"It  is  impossible  for  you  ever  to  understand  one  an- 
other," said  Mme.  d'Agoult. 

Despite  the  personal  antipathy  with  which  Wagner 
inspired  her,  Juliette  made  enormous  efforts  to  sell  tickets 
for  the  three  concerts  he  was  to  give  at  Paris.  And  she 
disposed  of  so  many  that  the  musician  actually  sent  de 
Ronchaud  to  her  with  a  message  of  thanks  from  "  the 
Hydrocephalus." 

The  first  two  concerts  at  least  were  a  distinct  success. 
At  the  second  even  Berlioz  applauded. 

Mme.  d'Agoult,  unlike  most  aristocratic  Frenchwomen 
of  her  day,  was  a  brave  pedestrian.  That  was  what  kept 
her  such  a  good  figure,  said  Juliette;  and  her  young 
friend  often  accompanied  her  on  her  walks.  In  May  1859, 
after  having  visited  the  Salon,  they  walked  through  the 
Bois.  Juliette  seldom  refers  to  her  own  toilettes.  But 
on  that  day,  she  tells  us,  she  was  wearing  a  specially 
becoming  costume,  a  frock  of  black  taffetas  with  no  trim- 
ming, but  wide  sleeves  of  white  lace,  a  fichu  of  black 
chantilly  and  a  Leghorn  hat  with  a  cluster  of  cornflowers 
and  strings  of  black  velvet.  It  was  a  glorious  May  day. 
All  Paris  seemed  to  be  out  enjoying  itself.  As  the  Countess 
and  Juliette  walked  past  the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  Mme. 
d'Agoult  said — 

"  The  war  is  imminent.  Perhaps  it  will  be  declared 
to-morrow.  God  send  we  may  see  France  victorious  and 
Italy  delivered."  l 

For  months  Mme.  d'Agoult  and  her  friends  had  been 
eagerly  following  Italy's  struggle  for  liberty.  With  the 
whole  of  France  they  ardently  desired  their  Latin  sister's 
liberation  from  the  Austrian  yoke.  The  Countess  herself 
had  Italian  connections.  She  was  related  to  a  well-known 
Florentine  family,  the  Peruzzi. 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  166. 


SALON  LIFE  DURING  SECOND  EMPIRE     75 

Juliette,  before  she  came  to  Paris,  had  known  little  of 
foreign  politics.  Save  for  a  vague  prejudice  against 
England,  the  legacy  of  the  Napoleonic  Wars,  a  mistrust  of 
Prussia  and  a  liking  for  the  Russians  because  Russian 
soldiers,  billeted  in  the  house  of  Chauny,  had  been  kind 
to  her  grandmother,  Juliette  had  no  very  decided  sym- 
pathies or  antipathies  towards  countries  not  her  own. 
But  in  Mme.  d'Agoult's  salon  such  indifference  speedily 
vanished.  On  the  very  first  evening  in  the  Rue  Presbourg 
she  met  the  Alsatian,  Nefftzer,  who  had  been  editor  of  La 
Presse  and  was  later  to  direct  Le  Temps.  "  By  him,"  she 
writes,  "  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  heard  foreign  politics 
lucidly  discussed,  and  it  was  then  that  I  began  to  take  an 
interest  in  them."  x 

Among  the  European  nations  outside  France  Italy  was 
Juliette's  first  love  and  Garibaldi  her  greatest  hero.  Next 
to  Italy,  as  one  might  expect  from  so  ardent  a  Hellenist, 
came  Greece.  She  and  her  Grecian  friends  were  highly 
delighted  when  the  Ionian  Isles  were  reunited  to  Greece. 
She  was  in  the  South  of  France  at  the  time,  but  de  Ron- 
chaud  wrote  announcing  the  good  news  and  exclaiming 
"  Vive  V independence." 

But  that  was  in  1862.  To  return  to  1859  and  to  the 
cause  of  Italian  unity  as  it  appealed  to  Mme.  d'Agoult's 
salon.  Napoleon's  declaration  of  war  against  Austria  so 
delighted  Juliette  and  her  friends  that  for  a  moment  they 
almost  forgot  their  opposition  to  the  Empire.  The  news 
of  the  victories  which  followed  increased  their  rejoicing, 
but  their  joy  was  short-lived;  for  in  a  few  weeks  came  a 
bitter  disillusionment.  In  July  the  Peace  of  Villafranca 
was  signed.  Instead  of  fulfilling  Napoleon's  proud  boast 
and  freeing  Italy  from  the  Alps  to  the  Adriatic,  it  delivered 
her  tied  hand  and  foot  into  the  power  of  Austria.  Francis 
Joseph  remained  master  of  Italy,  the  most  powerful  member 
of  the  Italian  Confederation,  over  which  the  Pope,  Pio- 
Nono,  presided. 

"  Ah  !  we  felt  that  Napoleon's  promises  had  been  too 
good  to  be  true,"  exclaimed  Juliette  and  her  Republican 
friends.  And,  with  more  reason,  "  I  told  you  so," 
exclaimed  M.  Thiers.  For  the  ex-Minister  had  advised 
the  Emperor  not  to  engage  in  war  against  Austria.  Italian 
unity,  he  foretold,  would  be  followed  by  Prussian  unity. 
1  Souvenirs,  II.  85. 


76  MADAME   ADAM 

And  now  he  pointed  out  that  France  had  not  only  made  an 
enemy  of  Austria,  but  she  had  offended  Italy,  who  saw  that 
she  had  been  duped.  Italy  was  still  further  offended 
when  Napoleon  in  direct  violation  of  the  Treaty  of  Villa- 
franca  insisted  on  annexing  Savoy  and  Nice.  Then,  not 
content  with  ranging  against  him  Italy  and  Austria,  the 
Emperor  proceeded  to  alienate  the  Pope,  whom  he  was 
pledged  to  support. 

Out  of  that  mind  which,  as  Lord  Palmerston  said,  "  was 
as  full  of  schemes  as  a  warren  of  rabbits,"  Napoleon  III 
produced  at  this  juncture  one  of  his  numerous  pamphlets. 
In  this  one  he  attacked  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
Pope's  temporal  power,  urging  him  to  acquiesce  in  the 
independence  of  Romagna.  This  dangerous  policy  of 
playing  first  with  one  party  then  with  another  made  Juliette 
and  her  friends  tremble  for  France,  despite  their  anti- 
clericalism. 

They  were  kept  closely  in  touch  with  Italian  affairs  by 
a  friend  of  Mme.  d'Agoult's,  a  man  equally  remarkable 
in  the  three  fields  of  science,  literature,  and  politics, 
Alessandro  Bixio,  the  founder  with  Buloz  of  the  Revue  des 
deux  Mondes.  Born  in  1808,  Bixio  was  a  Genoese  by 
birth,  but  had  been  educated  in  France.  A  moderate 
Republican,  during  the  terrible  insurrection  of  July  1848, 
in  an  attempt  to  keep  order  in  Paris  streets,  he  had  been 
severely  wounded.  Having  lost  consciousness  he  was 
taken  for  dead,  and  left  lying  near  one  of  the  barricades. 
Not  having  been  heard  of  afterwards,  his  death  was 
announced,  a  memorial  service  was  arranged,  mourning  was 
ordered,  when  suddenly  his  friend  Hetzel,  the  publisher, 
received  a  letter  from  him.  A  concierge  had  found  the 
wounded  man  lying  in  the  street,  had  taken  him  into 
the  house,  and  there,  after  some  days  of  coma,  he  had 
returned  to  consciousness.  He  wrote  to  Hetzel  entreat- 
ing him  to  announce  his  resurrection  as  delicately  as 
possible. 

Earlier  in  the  year,  Bixio  had  been  French  Ambassador 
at  Turin,  later,  during  Prince  Louis  Napoleon's  presidency, 
he  was  French  Minister  of  Agriculture.  After  the  coup 
d'etat  he  had  retired  into  private  life.  But  he  remained 
in  close  touch  with  Turin,  which  he  visited  every  fortnight, 
never  failing  on  his  return  to  bring  to  the  Rue  Presbourg 
the  latest  news  from  the  Piedmontese  capital.     On  one 


SALON  LIFE  DURING  SECOND  EMPIRE     77 

occasion,  when  Mme.  d'Agoult  was  going  to  Turin  to  see 
the  performance  of  one  of  her  plays,  Bixio  was  her  escort. 
The  Countess's  story  on  her  return  of  her  reception  by 
Victor  Emmanuel  and  of  her  having  seen  Cavour,  fanned 
into  yet  greater  ardour  her  guests'  passion  for  Italian 
unity. 

Alessandro's  brother,  Nino  Bixio,  played  a  prominent 
part  in  Garibaldi's  Sicilian  expedition,  having  commanded 
one  of  the  two  ships  which  sailed  from  Genoa.  This 
adventure  he  related  in  detail  to  Juliette  some  time  later. 
Nino  Bixio  was  one  of  the  most  fearless  of  men ;  he  was  said 
to  have  plucked  a  bullet  out  of  his  own  flesh,  saying  to  his 
men,  "  See,  such  things  are  quite  harmless."  When  Juliette 
in  conversation  with  his  brother,  referred  to  Nino's 
intrepidity,  "  Yes,  by  my  faith,"  exclaimed  Alessandro. 
"  Did  I  not  bring  him  up  not  to  know  fear  ?  Did  I  not, 
when  he  was  a  boy,  hold  him  by  one  foot  and  let  him 
dangle  from  the  balcony  over  the  street?  " 

Juliette  eagerly  and  sympathetically  followed  Garibaldi's 
adventures.  She  collected  all  the  details  she  could  glean 
about  her  hero,  and,  in  1859,  published  a  pamphlet *  which 
caused  her  to  be  regarded  as  an  authority  on  the  Italian 
liberator. 

Her  admiration  for  Garibaldi  did  not  prevent  her  from 
appreciating  the  services  rendered  to  Italian  liberty  by  the 
more  judicious  Cavour.  The  tidings  of  Cavour' s  illness, 
broken  to  Mme.  d'Agoult  in  a  letter  from  Turin,  cast  a 
gloom  over  the  salon  of  the  Rue  Presbourg.  "  Cavour," 
wrote  the  Countess's  correspondent,  "  is  in  extremis, 
the  Italian  doctors  are  killing  him.  They  are  butchers. 
They  have  bled  him  fourteen  times."  2  "  Alas,"  adds 
Juliette,  "  they  bled  him  once  more,  and  he  died  on  the 
6th  of  June  "  (1861). 

Almost  as  fruitless  as  the  Italian  War  was  Napoleon  Ill's 
expedition  to  Syria  on  behalf  of  the  Christians  of  Mt. 
Lebanon,  threatened  with  extermination  by  a  neighbouring 
Mussulman  tribe,  the  Druses.  This  expedition,  which  was 
much  discussed  in  Mme.  d'Agoult's  salon,  had  ended  in 
the  French,  as  the  result  largely  of  Lord  Palmerston's 
intervention,  evacuating  Syria  and  leaving  the  cause  of 

1  Garibaldi:  Sa  vie  d"apres  Documents  Inedits,  avec  un  portrait,  Paris, 
1859. 
1  Souvenirs,  II.  315. 


78  MADAME   ADAM 

the  persecuted  Christians  to  the  Sultan's  somewhat  un- 
certain championship.  Renan,  appointed  to  an  archaeo- 
logical mission  in  Syria  by  the  French  Government,  had 
chanced  to  sail  with  the  expedition.  As  soon  as  he  came 
back,  and  returned  to  the  Rue  Presbourg,  he  was  eagerly 
questioned  by  Juliette  and  her  friends  as  to  his  opinion 
of  the  settlement. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  it  ?  "  inquired  Dupont-White, 
referring  to  the  Sultan's  protectorate  and  the  French 
evacuation  of  Syria. 

"  I  think  well  of  it,"  replied  Renan.  "  It  will  put  an 
end  to  the  massacres." 

"  What,"  exclaimed  Dupont-White,  "  then  do  I  under- 
stand that  you  were  sent  there  to  stir  up  religious  fanati- 
cism ?  I  knew  you  received  your  mission  through  Prince 
Napoleon,  so  I  thought  your  object  would  be  rather  to 
come  to  an  understanding  with  the  infidels.  For  I  regard 
your  prince  and  you  as  being  two  of  the  finest  specimens 
of  infidelity  in  the  world." 

"  But  Prince  Napoleon  is  a  deist,"  said  Renan. 

"Very  well.     And  you?" 

"  I  have  no  objection  to  saying  Mon  Dieu,"  replied 
Renan.     "  But  .  .  ." 

"  I  don't  see  Renan  going  to  preach  a  crusade  in  Syria 
or  anywhere  else,"  said  Littre,  who  had  seemed  to  be 
dreaming.1 

Two  years  later,  on  the  23rd  of  June,  1863,  after  Juliette 
had  separated  from  her  first  husband  and  was  living  with 
her  parents  at  Chauny,  appeared  Renan' s  Vie  de  Jesus. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  its  influence  on  free  thought  Dr. 
Lambert  considered  the  publication  of  this  book  the  most 
significant  event  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Juliette  received  twenty  letters  from  her  friends, 
some  extolling,  others  attacking  the  book.  Mme.  de 
Pierreclos  thought  it  abominable  and  pernicious,  all  the 
more  because  of  the  perfection  of  its  style.  Ronchaud 
wrote  admiring  its  poetry.  "  Even  those,"  he  added, 
"  who  disbelieve  in  the  divinity  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  must 
henceforth  worship  him." 

"  Renan,"  said  Dr.  Lambert,  "  was  like  myself,  a  simple- 
minded,  sincere  and  pious  student  of  theology.  But  when 
1  Souvenirs,  II.  317. 


SALON  LIFE  DURING  SECOND  EMPIRE    79 

he  found  the  sacred  text  distorted  by  those  to  whom  it  had 
been  entrusted,  he  lost  faith  as  I  did." 

Dr.  Lambert  on  hearing  that  Renan  had  been  deprived 
of  his  chair  of  Hebrew  at  the  College  de  France,  exclaimed, 
"  You  see,  imperialism,  by  treating  Renan  as  an  enemy, 
is  pointing  him  out  to  us  as  our  friend."  x 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  421. 


CHAPTER  VII 

AMONG   THE    UTOPIANS 

1858—1864 

"  Often  in  the  years  that  are  darkening  around  me,  I  remember  our 
beautiful  scheme  of  a  noble  and  unselfish  life  and  how  fair  in  that  first 
summer  appeared  the  prospect  that  it  might  endure  for  generations.'-' — 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  The  Blithedale  Romance. 

"  Moi  qui  ait  vecu  une  partie  de  ma  jeunesse  avec  des  cabetiens,  des 
phalansteriens,  des  saint- simonians.v — Mme.  Adam,  Souvenirs. 

Juliette's  energy  was  crowding  her  life  with  a  variety 
of  interests  and  occupations  :  literary  work,  plays,  parties, 
picture  shows  and  two  distinct  sets  of  acquaintances  : 
Mme.  d'Agoult's  rather  aristocratic  and  elegant  republican 
friends,  and  a  much  less  fashionable  circle.  While  Mme. 
d'Agoult  and  her  associates  concentrated  on  political 
reform,  coming  more  and  more  into  prominence  in  Parisian 
society  was  another  group  of  reformers,  the  collectivists, 
who  were  followers  of  Fourier  and  Saint-Simon.  They, 
placing  little  faith  in  politics,  were  working  for  a  social 
revolution.  With  the  latter' s  schemes  for  humanity's 
regeneration,  her  father's  enthusiasm  had  already  made 
Juliette  familiar.  But  we,  too,  if  we  would  enter  into  her 
life  at  this  time,  must  take  note  of  these  somewhat  Bohemian 
reformers  and  of  their  Utopian  aspirations,  which,  stimu- 
lating many  of  Juliette's  most  intimate  friends,  could  not 
fail  to  affect  her  own  mind  and  character. 

After  extreme  individualism  had  permeated  the  thought 
of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  tendency  to- 
wards solidarity  began  to  declare  itself  among  certain  bold 
thinkers.  A  feeling  for  association  was  in  the  air.  Associa- 
tion of  whom  and  with  whom  was  perhaps  not  quite  clear. 
But,  however  defined,  association,  or,  as  we  should  to-day 
describe  it,  human  solidarity,  seemed  in  many  enlightened 
circles  to  offer  the  only  possible  remedy  for  the  ills  of 
society.     Even  such  an  ardent  idealist  as  George  Sand 

80 


AMONG  THE  UTOPIANS  81 

had  been  converted  to  this  comparatively  new  point  of 
view.  "  Are  there  not  misfortunes  that  call  more  urgently 
for  relief  than  the  boredom  of  this  or  the  whims  of  that 
individual  ?  "  she  writes.1  Louis  Napoleon  himself,  before 
he  became  Emperor,  had  shown  in  certain  of  those 
pamphlets,  for  which  he  was  famous,  that  he  was  not  un- 
affected by  this  new  current  of  opinion.  The  feeling  of 
solidarity  had  declared  itself  definitely  in  the  early  months 
of  the  1848  Revolution.  But  its  germs  must  be  sought 
much  earlier.  We  must  go  back  fifty  years  to  the  time 
when  the  French  Revolution  was  shaking  society  to  its 
foundations.  Then  there  appeared  a  man,  who,  standing 
apart,  aloof  from  the  great  scuffle  of  parties,  entertained 
the  daring  thought  of  reconciling  them  all  and  making 
them  all  pull  together  in  a  new  system.  That  man  was 
Francois  Marie  Charles  Fourier.  Born  at  Besancon  in 
1772,  the  son  of  a  tradesman  from  whom  he  inherited  a 
small  fortune,  Fourier  became  a  commercial  traveller  in 
the  grocery  line.  Then  he  served  for  a  while  in  Napoleon's 
campaigns.  But,  returning  to  his  original  occupation,  he 
found  employment  in  a  wholesale  house  at  Marseilles. 
There  his  employers  instructed  him  secretly  to  throw  into 
the  sea  a  whole  cargo  of  rice  which  that  firm,  in  order  to 
send  up  the  price,  had  stored  until  it  had  become  useless.2 
This  commission  opened  Fourier's  eyes  to  the  iniquitous 
waste  proceeding  in  modern  industry.  Henceforth  one 
of  the  most  wildly  imaginative  minds  that  has  ever  existed 
outside  a  lunatic  asylum  was  concentrated  on  social  prob- 
lems. To  the  ideas  that  resulted  Fourier  gave  expression 
in  a  whole  library  of  voluminous  works,  of  which  the  best 
known  is  his  Theorie  des  Quatre  Mouvements.  In  this 
welter  of  elaborate  theorising,  wild  schemes  and  absurd 
prophecies,  such  as  that  the  ocean  may  one  day  be  re- 
placed by  a  sea  of  lemonade,  and  that  humanity  may  once 
more  develop  a  tail,  it  is  possible  to  discover  certain  sane 
and  essentially  practical  suggestions  for  social  reform. 

It  seems  incredible  that  this  commercial  traveller,  who 
on  one  side  of  his  brain  was  so  completely  unreasonable, 
should  have  produced  a  scheme  which  has  in  many  respects 
now  come  to  be  regarded  as  fundamentally  right.  Fou- 
rierism,  divested  of  its  absurd  extravagance,  contains  the 

1  Lettres  a  Marcie,  III.  (1837). 

3  Biographie  Qinerale  under  "F.  M.  C.  Fourier." 


82  MADAME   ADAM 

germ  of  much  modern  socialism.  For  Fourier  was  one  of 
the  first  to  realise  "  that  social  organisation  should  rest  on 
a  comprehensive  conception  of  human  nature."  The  first 
task  of  a  reformer,  he  held,  is  to  analyse  human  passions 
and  to  study  their  combinations.  But  Fourier's  psycho- 
logy, as  one  might  expect,  is  extremely  fanciful.  He 
discovered  twelve  major  passions  which  can  be  combined 
into  eight  hundred  and  ten  characteristic  types.  No  one 
of  these  types  can  be  fully  himself,  nor  reap  the  greatest 
benefit  from  his  labour  in  a  state  of  isolation  or  in  the  state 
of  permanent  warfare,  which  we  call  competition.  In  our 
present  inorganic  condition,  legitimate  desires  clash  and 
may  often  be  called  vices.  In  the  free  and  communistic 
regime  of  the  future  they  will  all  be  harmonised.  Produc- 
tion will  be  increased  a  thousandfold  by  the  association  of 
efforts.  Labour  will  be  no  longer  a  curse,  for  it  will  become 
attractive  through  the  free  choice  and  constant  change  of 
occupation. 

The  part  of  Fourier's  scheme  which  most  appealed  to 
his  contemporaries  was  his  ideal  community,  in  which 
he  hoped  to  embody  his  ideas  in  concrete  form.  This 
community  he  called  the  Phalanstery. 

Juliette  well  remembered  how,  when  she  was  a  child,  a 
fervent  Fourierist  had  visited  her  father  at  Blerancourt. 
He  had  talked  in  such  glowing  terms  of  this  ideal  com- 
munity that  she  forthwith  resolved  that  on  her  return  to 
Chauny  she  and  her  schoolfellows  would  lose  no  time  in 
establishing  a  phalanstery.  She  was,  however,  reluct- 
antly compelled  to  admit  the  justice  of  her  father's  remark 
that  at  the  age  of  nine  and  a  half  she  was  rather  young  to 
launch  out  on  so  complicated  an  experiment.  For,  indeed, 
simplicity  was  no  part  of  the  root  idea  of  the  phalanstery. 
This  may  be  seen  from  the  following  enunciation  of  his 
principle  by  the  master  himself. 

"  Since  there  are  only  eight  hundred  and  ten  characters," 
argued  Fourier,  "  a  phalanx  of  that  number  (or  rather  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  with  old  men  over  one  hundred 
and  twenty  and  children  under  four)  will  be  sufficient  to 
realise  Harmony  on  about  a  square  league  of  ground.  This 
phalanx  would  live  in  a  handsome  and  comfortable  build- 
ing— farm,  workshop  and  palace  combined — called  the 
Phalanstery.  In  this  association  capital  and  talent  as  well 
as  labour  would  have  their  proper  reward." 


AMONG  THE   UTOPIANS  83 

Few  of  the  various  attempts  to  establish  phalansteries 
met  with  any  success.  Fourier  himself,  aided  by  one  of  his 
most  eminent  disciples,  Victor  Considerant,  and  financed 
by  a  French  Depute,  endeavoured  in  vain  to  apply  his 
theories  at  Conde  sur  Vesgres.1  After  Fourier's  death  in 
1837,  another  vain  attempt  at  a  phalanstery  was  made  at 
Citeaux. 

But  it  was  on  the  virgin  soil  of  America,  in  the  light 
of  the  New  World's  sanguine  hopefulness  and  fervent  en- 
thusiasm for  social  progress  that  the  phalansterians  were 
most  confident  of  success.  In  America  Fourierism  had 
aroused  intense  interest.  There  it  had  met  with  its  most 
ardent  advocates  and  its  bitterest  opponents.2  Victor 
Considerant,  who  after  Fourier's  death  became  the  chief 
apostle  of  Fourierism,  had  founded  a  newspaper  La  Demo- 
cratic Pacifique  for  the  advocacy  of  his  doctrines.  In  the 
columns  of  this  paper  in  the  year  1853,  he  sketched  the 
outline  of  an  ideal  community,  La  Reunion,  to  be  founded 
in  Texas  on  the  banks  of  the  Red  River.  Subscriptions  to 
the  experiment  flowed  in  from  all  parts  of  the  world.  The 
chief  subscriber  was  a  rich  American,  Albert  Brisbane. 
He  had  sat  at  Fourier's  feet  in  Paris.  Fascinated  by 
this  new  gospel,  he  was  spending  his  life  translating  the 
reformer's  colossal  and  for  the  most  part  incoherent  works, 
vainly  endeavouring  to  introduce  into  them  something 
like  order. 

But,  despite  its  brilliant  prospects,  La  Reunion  too  was 
a  failure.  Victor  Considerant,  though  a  clever  organiser, 
possessed  neither  legislative  nor  administrative  gifts.  He 
was  an  apostle,  nothing  more.  And  when  adherents  from 
all  parts  of  the  world  flocked  to  the  Red  River,  they  found 

1  With  regard  to  this  phalanstery  there  is  a  slight  discrepancy  in  Mme. 
Adam's  Souvenirs.  According  to  vol.  i.  p.  342,  Conde  was  the  phalan- 
stery which  her  father,  during  her  childhood,  wished  to  join,  whereas 
according  to  vol.  ii.  p.  136,  that  phalanstery  was  Guise.  Probably  Guise 
is  correct.  For  the  Conde  movement  had  been  abandoned  before  Juliette 
was  born. 

1  Among  the  latter  was  Donald  McLaren,  author  of  a  virulent  diatribe 
against  Fourierism,  published  at  Caledonia,  Livingstone  County,  in  1844, 
entitled  The  Boa  Constrictor,  in  which  Fourier's  gospel  is  denounced  "  for 
the  licentiousness  of  its  principles,  its  hypocrisy  and  sinister  aims."  In 
this  connection  it  should  be  noticed  that,  as  a  concession  to  the  prejudices 
of  the  times,  Fourier  never  attempted  to  give  practical  application  to  his 
theories  as  to  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  to  that  "  Phanerogamy  u 
which  is  but  another  name  for  promiscuity. 


84  MADAME   ADAM 

this  anticipated  ideal  community,  not,  as  they  had  fondly 
hoped,  the  embodiment  of  perfect  harmony,  but  a  chaos 
of  hopeless  confusion. 

Warned  by  Brisbane's  experience  and  much  to  his  disap- 
pointment, George  Ripley,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  and 
others,  when  they  were  organising  the  comparatively 
successful  socialist  community  of  Brook  Farm,  at  West 
Roxbury  (Mass.),  carefully  kept  off  phalansterian  lines.1 

Thus  by  the  time  Juliette  came  to  live  in  Paris  the 
Phalansterian  Movement  had  been  tried  and  found  want- 
ing. Nevertheless  it  was  not  dead.  Its  spirit  still  breathed 
in  the  numerous  co-operative  experiments,  which  were 
being  tried  on  every  hand;  and  one  of  these,  the  famous 
foundry  at  Guise,  run  on  something  approaching  phalan- 
sterian lines,  met  with  considerable  success,  owing  to  the 
organising  genius  of  the  founder,  the  Fourierist  Godin. 
It  endured  until  shortly  before  the  Great  War. 

Fourier's  disciples,  when  in  1858  Juliette  first  came  into 
personal  contact  with  them,  had  grouped  themselves  into 
what  was  called  l'Ecole  Societaire,  which  numbered  some 
four  thousand  adherents.  The  school  had  its  headquarters 
in  the  Rue  de  Beaune,  in  a  shop  for  the  sale  of  Fourierist 
literature,  kept  by  a  certain  Mile.  Aime  Beuque. 

It  was  to  this  shop  that  Juliette,  soon  after  the  publica- 
tion of  Idees  Anti-Proudhoniennes,  was  taken  by  her  good 
friend  Dr.  Bonnard.  She  found  Mile.  Beuque  an  odd 
creature.  A  quaint  birth-marked,  shrivelled-up  little  old 
maid,  wearing  a  rough  black  serge  gown,  a  big  black  poke 
bonnet  tied  with  broad  strings,  she  had  invariably  hanging 
over  her  arm,  a  capacious  bag,  half  satchel,  half  basket. 
Aime  Beuque  had  known  Fourier  when  he  was  a  grocer 
at  Lyons.  Sitting  at  his  feet  she  had  imbibed  his  doctrine 
and  become  one  of  its  most  convincing  advocates,  winning 
for  the  new  philosophy  many  a  distinguished  adherent. 
For  in  that  poor  little  wizened  unattractive  body  there 
burned  a  great  soul  passionately  convinced  that  perfect 
harmony  would  one  day  evolve  out  of  all  our  apparently 
hopeless  social  chaos. 

This  little  woman  so  charmed  Juliette  that  she  came  away 
from  the  Fourier  shop  feeling  that  in  la  chere  petite  vieille 

1  Founded  in  1841,  the  Brook  Farm  Community  broke  up  in  1847.  In 
his  delightful  story,  The  Blithedale  Romance,  Hawthorne  describes  this 
settlement. 


AMONG  THE   UTOPIANS  85 

Beuque,  she  had  made  a  life-long  friend.  And  for  many 
a  year  whenever  she  was  downhearted,  depressed  by  the 
domestic  trials  which  were  now  thickening  around  her, 
Juliette's  due  feet  would  not  fail  to  cross  the  bridge  to 
Mile.  Beuque's  shop,  in  search  of  that  encouragement  and 
consolation  which  the  "  adorable  "  little  spinster  never 
failed  to  give  her. 

One  of  the  most  delightful  features  of  Paris  literary 
society  has  ever  been  the  habit  of  writers  and  readers  to 
foregather  for  leisurely  afternoon  talk  in  some  well-known 
book-shop — at  Anatole  France's  father's,  for  example,  on 
the  Quai  Voltaire ;  at  his  successor's,  Honore  Champion's, 
on  the  Quai  Malaquais,  or  at  Charles  Peguy's  at  the  office 
of  "  Les  Cahiers  de  la  Quinzaine,"  in  the  Rue  de  la  Sorbonne. 

Mile.  Beuque,  too,  had  her  afternoons ;  le  Jour  des  amis 
de  notre  vieille  Beuque  was  an  institution  highly  valued  by 
Juliette  and  her  Fourierist  friends. 

The  great  and  shining  light,  le  grand  homme  of  Tante 
Beuque's  shop  parlour,  was  the  eminent  writer  on  natural 
history,  Alphonse  Toussenel. 

His  name  had  been  a  household  word  for  Juliette  in  her 
childhood.  Out  of  Toussenel' s  book  V Esprit  des  Betes, 
Dr.  Lambert  had  told  his  little  girl  many  a  thrilling  tale 
about  the  habits  of  insects.  And  when,  in  their  walks, 
they  came  to  an  ant-hill,  father  and  daughter  would  both 
lie  down  flat  while  the  red  republican  parent  showed  the 
ants  at  their  work,  designating  the  fighters,  the  layers  of 
eggs  and  so  forth,  and  declaiming  loudly  against  the  lazi- 
ness of  the  queen  ant  as  against  that  of  all  other  royalties. 

Now  that  Juliette  made  the  acquaintance  of  Toussenel 
in  the  flesh  she  found  him  no  less  delightful  than  in  his 
books.  Though  in  certain  respects  wildly  extravagant 
and  greatly  given  to  paradox,  in  others  he  appeared 
abundantly  gifted  with  common  sense.  Some  of  his 
theories  were  almost  as  curious  as  those  of  his  master, 
Fourier.  In  his  manner  of  life  he  was  as  eccentric  as  his 
devoted  comrade,  Mile.  Beuque.  In  appearance,  however, 
he  presented  a  striking  contrast  to  his  meagre  little  com- 
panion. For  Toussenel  was  a  fine  figure  of  a  man,  an 
athlete,  whose  face  was  tanned  by  life  in  the  open  air, 
a  sportsman  in  spite  of  his  love  for  animals,  and  also  a 
bitter  anti-semite  1  in  spite  of  his  aspirations  after  social 
1  Author  of  Les  Juifs,  Bois  de  VEpoque,  1844. 


86  MADAME   ADAM 

harmony.  Toussenel's  attractive  personality  and  eloquent 
talk  brought  into  the  Rue  de  Beaune  book-shop  an 
atmosphere  of  the  most  brilliant  salon. 

Toussenel  was  an  enthusiastic  feminist;  so,  of  course, 
he  had  read  and  appreciated  Idees  Anti-Prudhoniennes  ; 
and  for  its  charming  author  he  speedily  developed  a  raptur- 
ous adoration.  One  of  his  eccentricities  was  to  illustrate 
human  intelligence  by  that  of  animals.  He  likened  Juliette 
to  the  falcon,  because  in  that  species  of  birds  apparently  the 
intelligence  of  the  female  is  superior  to  that  of  the  male 
bird.  To  his  "falcon,"  or  gerfaut,  he  wrote  ecstatic  love- 
letters.  Though  she  laughed  at  her  elderly  amoureux, 
she  kept  his  letters ;  and  one  of  them,  she  quotes  in  her 
Souvenirs.1    It  closes  pathetically  with  this  sentence — 

"It  is  not  your  fault  if  you  hold  a  larger  place  in  my  life 
than  I  in  yours.  I  do  not  write  to  complain,  but  to  tell  you 
that,  whenever  any  happiness  comes  to  you,  you  may  know 
that  one  of  my  wishes  has  been  fulfilled. 

"  Yours  in  heart,  mind  and  soul, 

"  Toussenel." 

As  well  as  in  the  shop  in  the  Rue  de  Beaune,  Fourierists 
used  to  gather  in  the  salon  of  Mme.  Charles  Reybaud. 
She  was  a  novelist  of  distinction,  whom  Juliette  thought 
the  only  contemporary  woman  of  letters  worthy  to  be 
compared  with  George  Sand. 

At  Mme.  Reybaud' s  Juliette  met  many  prominent 
socialists,  belonging  to  various  groups.  Some  were  Saint- 
Simonians,  the  followers  of  that  extraordinary  person 
Claude  Henri,  Comte  de  Saint-Simon  (1760-1825).  This 
philosopher,  realising,  like  Fourier,  the  disastrously  chaotic 
condition  of  society,  had  propounded  various  comprehen- 
sive schemes  for  its  reformation.  Saint-Simon's  life  had 
been  one  long  series  of  romantic  experiences,  wild  adven- 
tures and  hair-breadth  escapes.  Born  of  a  noble  family, 
priding  himself  on  being  descended  from  Charlemagne,  at 
sixteen  he  was  a  volunteer  under  Washington.  Returning 
to  Europe,  he  grew  rich  on  land  speculations  and  stock 
jobbing  under  the  Revolution,  but  was  imprisoned  at  the 
time  of  the  Terror.  In  prison  his  ancestor  Charlemagne, 
appearing  in  a  vision,  revealed  to  his  descendant  that  he 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  216. 


AMONG  THE   UTOPIANS  87 

was  destined  to  be  a  second  Messiah.  On  his  release,  to 
prepare  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  high  mission, 
Saint-Simon  entered  on  a  course  of  scientific  study  and 
European  travel.  He  had  married;  but  he  divorced  his 
wife  in  order  to  marry  Mme.  de  Stael,  who  had  recently 
become  a  widow.  Journeying  to  Geneva,  he  asked  the 
author  of  Corinne  to  unite  her  life  to  his,  for  he  pleaded  : 
'  You  are,  madame,  the  most  extraordinary  woman  in 
the  world.  I  am  the  most  extraordinary  man.  Our  off- 
spring ought  therefore  to  be  still  more  extraordinary." 
To  such  an  argument,  however,  unfortunately  for  the 
human  race,  this  otherwise  public-spirited  lady  turned  a 
deaf  ear. 

Having  wasted  his  substance  in  wild  schemes  and  ex- 
travagant living,  Saint-Simon  was  reduced  to  poverty. 
At  one  time  he  attempted  to  blow  out  his  brains,  but  only 
succeeded  in  disfiguring  himself  for  life  and  in  blinding  one 
eye.  He  died  in  1825,  leaving  behind  him  the  reputation 
of  a  crack-brained  Bohemian. 

Saint-Simon  had  been  fortunate,  however,  in  meeting 
with  clever  collaborators,  Augustin  Thierry  and  Auguste 
Comte.  These  two  eminent  writers  helped  him  to  formu- 
late his  somewhat  incoherent  notions,  and  to  express  them 
in  a  series  of  works1  which  exercised  no  little  influence. 
Some  of  Saint-Simon's  ideas  discussed  in  these  works, 
notably  the  piercing  by  a  canal  of  the  Isthmus  of  Panama, 
have  already  been  carried  out ;  others,  like  the  institution 
of  a  parliament  of  nations  for  the  regulation  of  international 
affairs,  are  still  in  the  air. 

The  dominant  aim  of  all  Saint-Simon's  schemes  was  the 
moral  and  physical  well-being  of  the  least  favoured  and 
most  numerous  class  of  humanity.  His  doctrines  had  at 
once  a  practical  and  a  mystical  tendency.  This  dreamer, 
at  a  time  when  French  industry  was  still  in  its  infancy, 
"  had  a  prophetic  vision  of  modern  production,  with  its 
scientific  management  and  its  unlimited  capacity.  He 
communicated  his  enthusiasm  to  his  disciples,  most  of  whom 
never  saw  him  in  the  flesh." 

For  it  was  not  until  after  the  apostle's  death  that  the 
Saint-Simonian  school  of  philosophy  was  formed.  Its 
rapid  success,  its  acceptance  by  "  all  the  superior  and  even 

1  La  Reorganisation  de  la  Societe  Europeenne,  ^Industrie  ou  Discussion* 
politiques,  morales  et  philosophiques  and  others. 


88  MADAME   ADAM 

all  the  exceptional  young  men  of  the  day,"  was  largely 
due  to  the  proselytising  vigour  and  organising  faculty  of 
Barthelemy  Prosper  Enfantin,  a  man  whom  Lord  Morley 
describes  as  "  the  most  wonderful  and  impressive  figure 
of  modern  enthusiasm."  * 

Father  Enfantin,  as  he  was  called,  had  only  been 
introduced  to  Saint-Simon  as  he  lay  on  his  death-bed. 

Barely  initiated  (a  peine  catechise),  writes  Mme.  Adam, 
this  Elisha  of  Saint-Simonianism  went  forth  to  preach 
throughout  the  towns  and  villages  of  France  the  golden  age 
of  the  future.  Signal  success  attended  his  crusade.  There 
was  much  in  the  Saint-Simonian  doctrine  which  accorded 
with  the  romantic  humanitarianism  of  the  age.  "  Its  key- 
note was  love — love  and  pity  for  the  oppressed,  for  the 
poor,  for  the  fallen  woman,  for  the  sinner,  for  Satan  him- 
self." The  service  of  mankind  was  the  essence  of  this 
religion.  For  Saint-Simonianism  was  a  religion.  As  such, 
its  founder  and  many  of  its  disciples  regarded  it.  Le 
Nouveau  Christianisme  is  the  title  of  Saint-Simon's  last 
book,  published  in  the  year  of  his  death. 

But,  as  we  have  said,  this  new  philosophy  had  also  its 
extremely  practical  side.  Its  adherents  preached  "  the 
gospel  of  great  public  works,  railroads,  maritime  canals, 
free  trade."  Here  again  they  were  responding  to  one  of 
the  great  needs  of  the  age. 

A  striking  characteristic  of  society  under  the  Empire 
was  the  intensity  of  its  material  activity.  Industry  on  a 
large  scale  had  begun  to  develop  under  Louis  Philippe.  It 
had  received  a  powerful  impetus  from  railroad  construction. 

One  of  the  most  wonderful  experiences  of  Juliette's 
childhood  was  her  first  railway  journey.  When  she  was 
ten  and  a  half,  her  father  took  her  by  train  from  Amiens 
to  Boulogne.  This  line,  the  first  in  France,  had  recently 
been  opened.  Juliette  was  horribly  frightened.  Every- 
thing terrified  her  :  the  snorting  of  the  engine,  the  diabolical 
air  of  the  engine-driver  and  fireman,  the  piercing  shriek  of 
the  whistle,  and,  above  all,  the  darkness  of  the  tunnel,  in 
which,  she  was  told,  a  poor  lady,  who  had  put  her  head 
out  of  the  window,  had  only  that  morning  been  guillotined 
by  a  passing  train.  When  Juliette  returned  to  Chauny, 
quite  a  heroine,  because  she  had  been  in  a  train,  this  story 
told  to  her  schoolfellows  had  a  brilliant  success.  That 
1  Morley,  Life  of  Cobden,  1910  ed.,  760. 


AMONG  THE   UTOPIANS  89 

unhappy  passenger's  tragic  fate  remained  for  many  a 
long  day  an  object  of  intense  interest  to  the  Miles.  Andre's 
pupils,  to  whose  inquisitiveness  it  suggested  all  manner  of 
questions. 

"  Why  did  she  lean  out  of  window?  "  asked  the  elder 
girls.     "  People  who  go  on  journeys  ought  to  take  care." 

"  Had  she  any  children  ?  "  asked  the  juniors,  "  and,  if  so, 
were  they  present?  " 

And  when  Juliette  replied  that  they  were,  the  horror 
was  indescribable. 

Juliette's  fame  as  a  train  traveller,  however,  soon  faded, 
for  so  rapid  was  the  spread  of  railway  construction  through- 
out France  that  train  journeys  soon  became  every-day 
occurrences.  Chauny  was  before  long  united  by  a  railway 
line  to  Paris,  which  Haussman  was  rapidly  rendering  almost 
unrecognisable.  And  in  all  this  mechanical  activity  the 
Saint-Simonians  were  playing  a  prominent  part.  With 
them  originated  many  industrial  enterprises  :  the  Saint  - 
Simonian  Pereires  founded  the  Magasin  du  Louvre  and 
the  General  Transatlantic  Company.  Father  Enfantin 
himself,  a  capable  railroad  administrator,  was  the  first 
to  conceive  the  project  of  the  Suez  Canal. 

Mme.  Adam  inclines  to  the  opinion  that  as  employers 
the  Saint-Simonians  were  inferior  to  the  Fourierists;  for 
the  latter  practised  division  of  profits  among  employers 
and  employed,  whereas  the  Saint-Simonians  showed  a 
tendency  to  exploit  their  workers.  They  encouraged 
trusts.  Their  system  Benjamin  Constant  described  as 
le  papisme  industriel. 

By  the  time  that  Juliette  came  to  Paris  the  Saint- 
Simonians  had  split  up  into  two  sects.  The  scission  had 
first  declared  itself  during  the  Revolution  of  1830,  when 
Enfantin  insisted  on  standing  aloof  from  politics,  while  his 
colleagues, Bazard  and  Rodrigues,  declared  that  the  Master's 
teaching  rendered  it  incumbent  upon  them  to  take  an  active 
part  in  political  affairs.  Further  contention  occurred  over 
the  relations  of  the  sexes.  Enfantin  declared  himself  the 
apostle  of  free  love,  Bazard  and  Rodrigues  upheld  mar- 
riage; and  it  was  on  this  point  that  the  Saint-Simonians 
finally  separated  into  a  school  which  was  entirely  political 
and  philosophical — that  of  Bazard  and  Rodrigues — and  the 
so-called  church  of  Enfantin,  which  represented  the  mystic 
and  individualist  side  of  the  Saint-Simonian  doctrine. 


90  MADAME   ADAM 

Enfantin  and  such  followers  as  remained  to  him,  only 
forty  in  number,  left  the  Rue  Taitbout,  which  had  been  the 
Saint-Simonian  headquarters,  and  went  off  to  the  suburb 
Menilmontant,  where  they  established  a  settlement.  Sing- 
ing songs  especially  composed  for  them,  and  attired  in 
tam-o'shanters  and  light  blue  dalmaticas,  the  brethren, 
most  of  whom  were  university  students,  cultivated  the 
ground  under  the  supervision  of  Father  Enfantin,  who 
wore  a  scarlet  robe  with  a  violet  girdle  and  a  large  metal 
necklace,  each  link  of  which  represented  one  of  his  disciples. 

Father  Enfantin  and  his  followers  lived  in  the  hope  of 
the  coming  of  a  feminine  Messiah,  who,  in  conjunction  with 
the  Father,  was  to  redeem  the  world.  But  their  labours 
were  interrupted  and  their  hopes  dashed  to  the  ground 
by  the  intervention  of  justice.  In  the  columns  of  the 
Saint-Simonian  newspaper,  Le  Globe,  the  Father  had  enun- 
ciated his  views  of  marriage  and  sexual  morality,  with  the 
result  that  he  found  his  settlement  at  Menilmontant  broken 
up,  and  himself  (in  1832)  condemned  to  a  year's  imprison- 
ment. It  was  on  his  release  that  he  went  to  Egypt  and 
studied  the  feasibility  of  cutting  a  canal  through  the 
Isthmus  of  Suez. 

When  Juliette  published  her  Idees  Anti-Proudhoniennes 
Father  Enfantin  was  back  again  in  Paris  acting  as  director 
of  the  Paris-Lyons  Mediterranee  Railway.  Struck  by  the 
cleverness  of  Juliette's  first  book,  he  sent  two  of  his  fol- 
lowers to  invite  the  young  authoress  to  a  Saint-Simonian 
banquet.  But  she  thought  it  prudent  to  refuse  the  invita- 
tion, having  heard  that  the  Father  regarded  her  in  the 
same  light  as  his  Master  had  regarded  Mme.  de  Stael,  viz. 
as  a  possible  feminine  Messiah,  who  with  the  Father  should 
make  all  things  new.  "  Enfantin,"  remarks  Juliette,  "  at 
the  age  of  sixty-two,  was  somewhat  late  in  discovering  his 
fellow-saviour,"  though  for  her  at  twenty-two  the  dis- 
covery was  premature,  for  she  did  not  feel  herself  ripe 
for  so  exalted  a  mission.  "  Just  think  what  I  was  expected 
to  bring  to  the  world  !  "  she  exclaims.  "  Nothing  less 
than  the  golden  age  !  " 

Though  Juliette  had  refused  the  invitation  to  the  ban- 
quet, she  permitted  her  friend  Aries  Dufour  to  take  her 
to  one  of  Enfantin' s  evening  receptions,  where  she  found 
him  assisted  by  a  stout  and  comely  lady.  Aries  Dufour 
had  been  one  of  those  who  had  brought  her  the  invitation 


AMONG  THE   UTOPIANS  91 

to  the  Father's  banquet.  From  the  first  he  had  taken  a 
fatherly  interest  in  the  young  Mme.  Lamessine;  and  she 
felt  drawn  to  him  by  a  sentiment  of  filial  devotion  which 
never  left  her.  He  must  indeed  have  been  an  attractive 
character.  An  ardent  Saint-Simonian,  a  pacifist,  an  advo- 
cate of  women's  rights  and  an  Anglophil,  he  was  the  friend 
of  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Richard  Cobden.  "It  is  charm- 
ing to  see  him,  at  sixty-five,  with  his  heart  still  running 
off  with  his  head,"  writes  Cobden  in  I860.1  "  He  would  not 
allow  the  word  '  obey '  to  be  used  by  women  in  the  mar- 
riage ceremony,  and  has  other  very  rebellious  notions." 

Though  in  practice  a  staid  citizen  of  Lyons,  a  devoted 
husband  and  father  of  a  family,  theoretically  Dufour,  like 
his  master,  Enfantin,  believed  in  free  love.  This  was  the 
only  point  on  which  he  and  his  young  friend  Juliette 
disagreed.  "  Woman  needs  a  certain  dignity,"  she  argued, 
"  which  can  never  be  hers  if  she  violates  convention  and 
neglects  her  duty  to  society." 

Aries  Dufour,  a  convinced  free  trader,  was  deeply  in- 
terested in  his  friend  Cobden's  mission  to  Paris,  for  the 
purpose  of  arranging  a  commercial  treaty  between  France 
and  England.  During  these  negotiations,  Aries,  who  was 
regarded  as  an  authority  on  free  trade,  was  more  than 
once  consulted  by  the  Emperor,  and  at  a  restaurant 
dinner  in  the  autumn  of  1860  he  entertained  Juliette, 
Mme.  Reybaud,  Girardin  and  some  Saint-Simonian  friends 
with  the  story  of  his  imperial  audiences.  Unlike  most  of 
Juliette's  acquaintances,  Dufour  was  an  Imperialist.  But 
he  had  spoken  rather  freely  to  Napoleon  on  the  subject 
of  his  Saint-Simonian  faith  and  his  dreams  for  the  future. 
Thereupon  the  Emperor  had  remarked,  "  Don't  you  think, 
M.  Aries,  that  people  may  not  be  far  wrong  when  they  call 
you  a  crank?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  replied  Aries  Dufour,  "  I  am  a  crank,  but 
your  Majesty  knows  it  is  only  the  cranks  who  succeed." 

The  Emperor  laughed  loudly ;  then  he  rose  and  said  : 
"  Go,  you  bold  man,  and  don't  return  until  to-morrow  at 
two  o'clock." 

At  the  same  restaurant  dinner  the  talk  fell  on  the  Suez 

Canal,    which   had   been   begun   two   years    earlier.     The 

Saint-Simonians  were  aggrieved  by  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps' 

appropriation  of  an  idea  which  they  regarded  as  the  pro- 

1  Morley,  Life  of  Cobden,  ed.  1910,  830. 


92  MADAME   ADAM 

perty  of  their  sect.  Girardin  argued  that  de  Lesseps  had 
conceived  the  idea  independently ;  that  it  was  he  who  had 
communicated  it  to  Said  Pasha,  who  had  received  it  with 
enthusiasm,  and  that  de  Lesseps  alone  could  carry  the 
project  through,  particularly  in  the  face  of  England's 
opposition.  Lord  Palmerston,  always  suspicious  of  Napo- 
leon's designs,  was,  as  Girardin  remarked,  conducting  a 
veritable  campaign  against  the  making  of  the  canal. 

"  Come,  Aries,"  said  Girardin.  "  You  know  how  mali- 
cious Palmerston  can  be  when  it  is  a  question  of  any 
French  enterprise.  Your  friend  Cobden  has  suffered 
enough  from  that.  Palmerston' s  campaign  against  the 
canal  ought  to  make  you  support  de  Lesseps  instead  of 
attacking  him.  .  .  .  When  de  Lesseps  comes  to  Paris  I 
will  take  you  to  him,  and  you  are  too  much  of  a  Frenchman 
not  to  say,  '  Succeed,  and  you  will  have  deserved  well  of 
the  Saint-Simonian  School  in  France.'  " 

Thus  did  this  wily  journalist  of  a  Girardin  win  Aries 
Dufour  to  his  side.  But  with  the  other  Saint-Simonians 
present  he  was  not  so  successful;  and  one  of  them,  who 
had  a  prophetic  soul,  was  heard  to  mutter  :  "  We  shall 
see.  But  if  the  canal  is  a  failure  it  will  remain  French; 
if  it  succeeds  the  English  will  buy  it,  as  they  buy  everything 
that  is  worth  buying." 

It  was  in  this  year,  1860,  that  Mme.  Lamessine  pub- 
lished her  second  volume,  Mon  Village,1  a  series  of  charming 
rural  sketches,  stories,  dialogues,  quaint  old  country  ballads 
put  into  the  mouth  of  a  village  weaver.  From  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  of  this  little  book,  one  breathes  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  Picard  countryside,  when  it  was  still  remote, 
before  railways  and  motor-cars  had  brought  it  within 
reach  of  the  capital.  Juliette  had  written  the  book  at 
the  suggestion  of  George  Sand,  who,  replying  to  a  letter 
in  which  Juliette  had  said  that  the  days  spent  at  her  village 
of  Blerancourt  were  the  happiest  of  her  life,  enjoined  her 
to  write  her  memories  while  they  were  fresh.  "  Your  title 
is  found,"  she  added,  "  Mon  Village."  The  publishers 
were,  by  a  curious  irony  of  fate,  Hetzel  and  Levy,  the  very 
two  who  had  most  emphatically  refused  her  first  book. 
M.  Lamessine,  having  taken  advantage  of  the  power  given 
him  by  the  Code  Napoleon,  had  appropriated  the  profits 

1  Mon  Village,  Collection  Hetzel,  Michel  L6vy  Freres,  Paris;  Meline, 
Caus  et  Cie,  Brussels. 


AMONG  THE   UTOPIANS  93 

of  her  earlier  publications.  Juliette  now,  at  Hetzel's  sug- 
gestion, by  dropping  the  last  letter  of  her  maiden  name, 
made  use  of  the  pseudonym  "Juliette  Lamber."  "It 
is  a  clever  trick,"  said  her  husband.  "  But  I  will  make 
you  pay  for  it." 

Juliette's  domestic  life  was  growing  steadily  more  and 
more  unhappy.  Aries  Dufour,  her  bon  pere,  as  she  called 
him,  advised  her  to  separate  from  her  husband.  But  to 
such  a  course  Dr.  Lambert  was  strongly  opposed.  How- 
ever, the  two  fathers — the  adopted  and  the  natural  one 
— met  at  Chauny.  There  Aries,  "  the  white-haired  old 
gentleman,"  whom  little  Alice  described  as  un  bon  genie, 
arranged  everything,  and  for  a  time  Juliette  gave  up  her 
life  in  Paris  and  returned  to  her  parents'  home. 

Mme.  d'Agoult  approved  of  the  course  her  young  friend 
had  taken.  And  Juliette  for  some  months  devoted  her- 
self entirely  to  her  literary  work.  She  was  writing  her 
third  volume,  a  study  of  a  Chinaman,  who  visits  Europe 
and  somewhat  in  the  manner  of  the  travellers  in  Montes- 
quieu's Persian  Letters  compares  Eastern  with  Western 
civilisation.  Under  the  title  of  Un  Mandarin  this  book 
appeared  in  the  same  series  as  Mori  Village,  before  the  end 
of  the  year  1860. 

Juliette  at  Chauny,  now  that  the  railway  line  had  been 
opened,  was  not  altogether  isolated  from  her  beloved  Paris. 
Her  friends  were  able  to  come  and  visit  her  on  Sundays. 
Hetzel  on  his  way  to  Brussels  made  a  point  of  calling  at 
Chauny ;    and  Juliette  herself  sometimes  went  to  town. 

On  one  occasion  she  went  to  Paris  to  visit  her  friend 
Eugene  Pelletan,1  who  was  in  Sainte  Pelagie  prison.  The 
Imperial  Government  always  kept  a  watchful  eye  on  the 
press ;  and  Pelletan  had  been  sentenced  to  three  months 
imprisonment  for  an  article  attacking  the  Government, 
entitled  La  Liberie  comme  en  Autriche,  which  had  appeared 
in  the  Courier  du  Dimanche. 

This  was  the  first  time  that  Juliette  had  been  in  a  prison. 
The  visit  left  an  impression  of  horror  on  her  mind,  which 
obsessed  her  for  many  weeks.  Pelletan  took  her  to  see  one 
of  his  fellow-prisoners,  that  famous  "  monomaniac  of  con- 
spiracy, Blanqui,  who  spent  half  his  political  life  in  the 
prisons  of  four  different  regimes."  Juliette  respected  and 
pitied  Blanqui  as  a  martyr  to  Republicanism  and  the  only 

1  See  ante,  57. 


94  MADAME   ADAM 

kind  of  martyr  with  whom  she  could  ever  sympathise, 
the  kind  that  returns  blow  for  blow.  Passive  resistance 
never  appealed  to  Juliette's  rebellious  spirit.  Not  even 
now,  when  she  has  become  a  Christian,  does  she  believe 
in  the  doctrine  of  turning  the  other  cheek.  In  Blanqui 
she  found  all  the  bitterness  and  disillusionment  of  the 
defeated  rebel.  When  she  offered  him  Daniel  Stern's 
History  of  that  Revolution  of  1848,  in  the  first  months  of 
which  he  had  played  a  prominent  part,  he  seemed  to  regard 
it  as  an  insult  and  refused  even  to  touch  the  volume. 

Juliette  returned  to  Chauny  depressed  and  ill.  She  had 
contracted  a  severe  cold,  which  speedily  developed  into 
hemorrhage  of  the  lungs.  She  concealed  this  alarming 
symptom  from  her  parents,  however,  and  made  an  excuse 
to  return  to  Paris,  where  she  saw  her  doctor,  not  Dr.  Bon- 
nard,  but  a  throat  specialist,  a  Dr.  Cabarrus,  whom  she 
had  lately  been  in  the  habit  of  consulting.  He  thought 
so  seriously  of  her  case  that  he  hurried  her  off  to  the  South 
of  France  at  once.  From  Paris  to  Cannes  in  those  days 
was  a  long  journey.  The  train  took  a  day  and  night  to 
reach  Toulon,  which  was  the  terminus.  Then  before  Cannes 
was  reached  there  were  two  days  of  driving. 

The  much- vaunted  Riviera  seemed  to  this  young  Picarde 
at  first  extremely  dull.  In  her  Voyage  autour  du  Grand 
Pin,  a  book  published  in  1863,  she  writes  :  "  I  loathe 
travelling.  I  love  the  things  I  know,  old  books,  old  friends, 
familiar  landscapes,  familiar  melodies,  familiar  enthusi- 
asms. ...  I  feel  much  worse  at  Cannes  than  I  did  at 
Paris,  and  I  can't  forgive  the  people  who  are  for  ever 
praising  Provence.  .  .  .  What  has  happened  to  the  sun  ? 
I  have  been  asking.  I  am  told  that  it  will  soon  come  out. 
I  wait.  If  you  have  heard  any  news  of  Phoebus  do  be  kind 
enough  to  send  me  a  telegram.  I  fear  that  some  accident 
may  have  befallen  him.  Perhaps  a  seal  may  have  devoured 
him  over  there  at  the  back  of  the  sea,  where  he  is  said  to 
set  in  this  country." 

But  it  was  as  she  had  been  told,  she  had  not  long  to 
wait,  Phoebus  Apollo  soon  rose  radiant  from  the  sea;  and 
with  the  glorious  sun  of  Provence  returned  Juliette's  health 
and  spirits. 

Introductions  from  the  north  speedily  surrounded  her 
with  interesting  acquaintances :  her  physician,  Dr.  Maure, 
the  friend  of  Thiers;  Dr.  Maure' s  friends,  Prosper  Merimee 


AMONG  THE  UTOPIANS  95 

and  Victor  Cousin;  Jean  Reynaud,  an  eminent  Saint- 
Simonian,  but  not  of  Enfantin's  group.  At  Jean  Ray- 
naud's villa,  la  Bocca,  she  met  Lord  Brougham.  Mme. 
Reynaud,  one  of  Chopin's  most  accomplished  pupils,  en- 
tranced Juliette  by  her  rendering  of  Beethoven.  Jean 
Reynaud  took  her  long  rambles.  In  one  of  these  he  related 
how  he  had  come  to  leave  Enfantin,  having  found  his 
views  on  sexual  morality  quite  impossible. 

Next  winter,  when  Juliette  returned  to  Cannes,  her  little 
Alice,  now  seven  and  a  half,  came  with  her  and  joined  in 
these  rambles  at  her  mother's  side.  Jean  Reynaud  was 
amused  by  Juliette's  respect  for  her  daughter's  person- 
ality. For  Mme.  Lamessine,  mindful  of  the  suffering 
endured  in  her  own  childhood  through  the  proselytising 
ardour  of  her  grandmother  and  father,  was  careful  not  to 
impose  on  Alice  any  of  her  own  ideas.  With  regard  to 
fundamental  things  Juliette  would  say  to  the  child : 
"  Grandfather  thinks  so  and  so,  my  view  is  such  and  such. 
You  must  form  your  own  opinion." 

The  first  time  Jean  Reynaud  heard  this  kind  of  con- 
versation he  burst  out  laughing,  and  was  about  to  repeat 
the  phrase  in  jest,  when  Juliette  stopped  him  with  a  look, 
and  sending  her  little  girl  away  to  pick  some  flowers,  said  : 
"  Joke  with  me  as  much  as  you  like,  but  not  before  her. 
Remember  she  has  only  me  to  respect." 

So  charmed  was  the  young  author  with  her  life  at  Cannes, 
so  beneficial  for  her  own  health  and  her  daughter's  did 
she  find  the  climate  of  Provence,  that,  before  the  end  of  her 
second  winter  there,  she  had  persuaded  her  father  to  buy 
a  building  site  on  the  Golfe  Juan;  and  before  her  return 
to  the  north  in  the  spring  of  1862,  the  walls  of  her  villa 
of  Bruyeres  were  already  rising. 

Dr.  and  Mme.  Lambert  were  thinking  of  selling  their 
house  at  Chauny,  in  order  to  spend  the  summer  months 
with  their  daughter  in  a  Paris  flat  and  their  winters  on  the 
shore  of  the  Mediterranean. 

The  winter  of  1862-3  found  Juliette  and  Alice  installed 
in  their  villa  of  Bruyeres.  Mme.  de  Pierreclos  was  their 
first  visitor.  Dr.  Maure  called  frequently,  always  bringing 
with  him  his  last  letter  from  his  friend  Thiers,  which  he 
was  proud  to  read  to  his  friends  at  Bruyeres.  But,  alas  ! 
he  by  whose  advice  Juliette  had  settled  on  the  Golfe  Juan, 
Jean  Reynaud,  her  "  third  father,"  as  she  called  him,  was 


96  MADAME  ADAM 

no  more.  He  had  died  in  Paris,  during  the  summer,  after 
a  surgical  operation.  His  loss  left  his  adopted  daughter 
disconsolate.  Her  book  Mon  Voyage  autour  du  Grand  Pin 
she  dedicated  to  his  memory;  for  every  one  of  its  pages, 
she  writes,  had  been  inspired  by  their  walks  and  talks  at 
Cannes. 

Dr.  Lambert,  when  he  came  to  Bruyeres,  was  as  charmed 
as  his  daughter  and  granddaughter  with  the  villa  and  its 
surroundings.  He  was  delighted  with  the  garden  which 
Juliette  had  planned.  But,  above  all,  he  was  enraptured 
by  the  Mediterranean,  which  he  saw  for  the  first  time,  and 
by  the  view  of  the  island  of  Corsica  in  the  distance. 

Gazing  upon  this  lovely  prospect,  the  fervent  classicist 
cried  :  "  Ah  !  this  is  Greece.  And  to  think  that  I  could 
ever  have  imagined  that  I  understood  Homer  and  all  he 
described  !  Why,  I  must  read  him  again,  in  the  light  of 
this  new  experience.  And  I  will  begin  this  very  day. 
Juliette,  have  you  our  old  Homer  here  ?  If  not,  I  must  go 
and  buy  a  copy  at  Cannes,  at  Nice,  or  even  in  Corsica,  if 
need  be." 

Henceforth  Dr.  Lambert  had  no  hesitation  as  to  leaving 
Chauny.  He  wrote  to  his  wife  that  the  house  must  be 
sold.  Juliette,  as  soon  as  the  winter  months  were  past, 
returned  to  Paris  to  look  for  a  flat. 

Dr.  Lambert,  le  vieil  etudiant,  as  his  daughter  called  him, 
would  have  liked  to  settle  in  the  Latin  quarter,  but  Alice 
was  bent  on  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  opposite  the  Tuileries 
Gardens,  where  she  loved  to  play.  And  it  was  Alice  who 
had  her  way.  Besides,  as  Juliette  explained  to  her  father, 
all  Revolutions  began  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  and  a  flat  in 
that  street  would  be  like  a  place  in  the  stalls  at  the  theatre. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HER    PRE-WAR    SALON 

1864—1870 

Le  Petit  Salon  de  la  Rue  de  Rivoli, 

Le  Grand  Salon  de  la  Maison  Sallandrouze. 

Sociability  has  ever  been  one  of  Mme.  Adam's  gifts. 
It  declared  itself  in  her  childhood.  At  school  she  was 
always  the  centre  of  a  band,  grouping,  organising  her 
schoolfellows.  When  she  came  to  live  in  Paris,  to  create 
a  salon  became  her  dominating  ambition.  And  it  was 
no  less  a  personage  than  that  most  distinguished  and 
aristocratic  of  salonnieres,  Mme.  d'Agoult,  who  first  sug- 
gested to  her  young  friend  the  possibility  of  realising  her 
aspiration. 

Mine  will  remain  the  great  salon  of  the  winter,"  said 
Mme.  d'Agoult,  who  frequently  left  Paris  during  the 
summer  months,  "  and  yours  shall  be  the  little  summer 
salon."  For  Juliette,  as  we  have  seen,  had  begun  to 
spend  her  winters  in  the  south. 

Then  the  Countess  proceeded  to  draw  up  a  code  of 
rules  for  Juliette's  guidance  in  the  execution  of  her  great 
social  enterprise.  "  Mme.  d'Agoult,"  writes  Juliette,  "  sent 
me  la  tres  belle  page  suivante.1 

"  '  Happiness  depends  on  renunciation  and  wisdom.  If 
you  would  gather  around  you  a  number  of  men  and  a  few 
intelligent  women  you  must  appear  serene  or  happy. 

"  '  Your  life,  though  in  reality  it  may  be  agitated, 
must  appear  to  others  to  be  without  complications  and 
not  lacking  in  unity. 

"  '  Friendships  can  only  be  retained  in  an  atmosphere 
which  is  impersonal  and  restful. 

"  '  In  order  that  the  founders  of  your  salon  may  regard 
themselves  as  such  you  must  consult  them  before  you 
introduce  any  new-comers. 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  462-3. 
H  97 


98  MADAME  ADAM 

"  '  You  should  avoid  exchanging  confidences ;  for  they 
create  too  close  an  intimacy;  and  they  may  lead  you  to 
give  advice  with  which  some  day  you  may  be  reproached. 

"  '  Be  modest,  but  not  self-effacing.  Be  simple,  but 
distinguished.  Express  your  opinions  with  a  certain 
confidence.     Appear  firm,  but  also  tolerant. 

"  '  If  you  would  preserve  your  salon  your  first  duty 
should  be  to  stimulate  the  intellectual  curiosity  of  those 
whom  you  have  gathered  round  you. 

"  '  Be  careful  to  make  them  feel  that  you  are  more 
occupied  with  them  than  with  yourself. 

"  '  Twenty  men  friends  and  five  women  will  suffice  to 
found  a  salon.     You  have  them  already.'  " 

Juliette  had  not  only  the  requisite  number  of  friends, 
but  now,  in  the  spring  of  1864,  she  had  also  a  home  in 
the  very  heart  of  Paris,  where  she  could  receive  them. 
And  the  dinner-party  which,  by  way  of  house-warming, 
she  gave  in  the  flat  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  may  be  regarded 
as  inaugurating  her  salon,  that  salon  minuscule,  as  she 
called  it,  which  was  to  be  the  summer  ante-chamber  to 
Mme.  d'Agoult's  grand  salon  d'Hiver. 

Seven  out  of  her  twenty  men  friends  were  invited  to 
dinner.  They  all  accepted,  and  hence  may  be  regarded 
as  the  pious  founders  of  Juliette's  first  salon.  They  were 
Edmond  Adam,  a  wealthy  financier,  an  ardent  republican, 
one  of  the  men  of  1848,  of  whom  we  shall  hear  much 
later;  Edmond  Texier,  a  distinguished  writer  and  a 
brilliant  wit;  the  amorous  Toussenel,  of  course;  Peyrat, 
the  most  bigoted  of  anti-clericals;  Nefftzer,  now  editor 
of  the  Temps  ;  that  polished  Jacobin,  Challemel-Lacour ; 
and  the  ever-faithful  Ronchaud. 

Following  Mme.  d'Agoult's  instructions,  and  preserving, 
roughly,  the  feminine  proportion  of  one  quarter  which  she 
had  indicated,  Juliette  had  invited  two  women  guests — 
Mme.  d'Agoult  herself  and  Mine,  de  Pierreclos.  But 
neither  was  able  to  come.  The  Countess,  who  seldom 
went  out  anywhere,  considered  herself  excused  from 
accepting  her  young  friend's  invitation  by  the  recent 
death  of  her  daughter,  Mme.  Ollivier.  Mme.  de  Pierreclos 
was  away  at  Macon,  staying  with  her  uncle,  Alphonse  de 
Lamartine. 

The  conversation  that  evening  gave  the  tone  for  the 


HER  PRE-WAR  SALON  99 

conversations  in  all  Juliette's  salons  :  of  the  little  salon 
in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  of  the  greater  salon  in  the  Boulevard 
Poissonniere,  of  the  pre-war  and  the  post-war  salon,  of 
that  extension  of  her  salons  which  was  La  Nouvelle  Revue, 
and  likewise  of  those  latter-day  assemblies  which,  since  her 
retirement  from  La  Nouvelle  Revue,  seventeen  years  ago, 
Mme.  Adam  has  gathered  round  her  on  the  terrace  or  in 
the  spacious  drawing-room  of  her  beautiful  country  home 
in  the  Abbey  of  Gif.  _ 

Whether  the  late  M.  Emile  Fagwet  ever  visited  either  of 
these  salons,  I  do  not  know.  But  if  he  did,  he  must  have 
been  ill  at  ease,  for  he  was  one  of  those  who  found  the 
political  salon  "  uninhabitable."  x  And  at  Mme.  Adam's, 
though  literature,  art,  philosophy,  and  other  subjects  were 
by  no  means  excluded,  politics  held  the  first  place. 
Throughout  the  Empire  Juliette's  salon,  first  in  the 
Rue  de  Rivoli,  later  on  the  Boulevard  Poissonniere,  was  a 
centre  of  energetic  republican  opposition  to  the  Empire. 
The  hostess's  chief  desire  was  to  reconcile  the  diverse 
currents  of  republican  sentiment,  to  blend  in  the  broad 
stream  of  freedom  the  various  and  too  often  conflicting 
strands  of  progress. 

Already  on  that  initial  evening  we  find  three  shades  of 
republican  opposition  represented  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli 
salon.  There  was  Peyrat,  the  most  rabid  of  reformers, 
who  cared  not  what  the  Government  might  be  so  long  as 
it  was  a  Republic.  "  Quelle  soit  aVabord  la  R&publique  ! 
on  verra  apres,"  he  exclaimed.2  There  was  the  more 
moderate  Edmond  Adam,  who  feared  what  he  called  a 
pseudo-Republic;  and  there  was  the  nationalist  Nefftzer, 
the  Alsatian,  who  steadily  refused  to  avert  his  gaze  from 
the  peril  lowering  across  the  north-eastern  frontier. 
Nefftzer,  though  calling  himself  a  republican,  would  have 
supported  the  Emperor  had  he  shown  himself  capable  of 
inaugurating  a  vigorous  foreign  policy.  The  editor  of  the 
Temps  was  one  of  the  few  who  in  those  days  perceived 
Bismarck's  true  aims  and  character.  "  II  est  plus  que 
dangereux,  il  est  effrayant,"  exclaimed  Nefftzer  that  even- 
ing. But  the  editor's  lugubrious  prognostications  were 
jeered  at  by  most  of  his  fellow-guests.  "  Here  comes  to 
life  again  the  illustrious  Jeremiah,"  said  Peyrat.  Only 
Juliette  and  her  amoureux  Toussenel  experienced  any 
1  Propos  Litteraires,  5ierne  serie,  285.  *  Souvenirs,  II.  450. 


100  MADAME   ADAM 

consternation  at  Nefftzer's  warnings.  "  I  have  long  felt," 
said  Toussenel,  "  that  some  one  was  undermining  our 
race,  our  character,  our  heroism.  .  .  .  You,  Nefftzer, 
declare  this  some  one  to  be  Prussia.  You  have  not 
wasted  your  time  here  this  evening.  You  have  warned 
a  patriot,  and  one  who  is  not  stoney-hearted.  Thank 
you."i 

In  Juliette's  salon  at  this  time  everything  was  an  open 
question;  for  in  these  years,  though  she  was  swayed  by 
strong  preferences,  she  had  no  exclusions.  Different 
shades  of  religious  as  well  as  of  political  opinion  were 
represented.  Anti-clericalism,  though  it  dominated,  did 
not  have  everything  its  own  way. 

When  Juliette's  physician,  Dr.  Gavel,  announced  that 
the  Masonic  Lodges  were  intending  to  drive  Catholicism 
from  France,  Peyrat  applauded,  but  Saint- Victor  put  in  a 
plea  for  liberty.2 

"  Whether  one  believes  or  disbelieves,"  said  Saint- Victor, 
"  freedom  is  essential." 

Eugene  Pelletan  agreed  with  him;  not  so  Peyrat,  who 
uttered  his  usual  cry  :  "  The  Republic  before  everything. 
And  then  ..." 

"  And  then  what?  "  inquired  Duclerc,3  who  was  one  of 
the  1848  revolutionists. 

"  After  we  have  extirpated  all  error,  then  .  .  ." 

"  But  who  shall  decide  what  is  error  ?  " 

"  We  shall." 

"  Then  you  consider  yourselves  infallible?  " 

"Is  it  or  is  it  not  a  question  of  overthrowing  the 
adversary?  " 

"  Yes ;  but  I  should  like  to  know  in  favour  of  whom 
and  of  what  the  adversary  is  to  be  overthrown." 

"  In  favour  of  the  principles  of  the  Great  Revolution." 

"  The  principles  of  '92  or  '93?  " 

"Oh!"  said  Peyrat;  "not  the  Revolution  as  under- 
stood by  Quinet,  the  Revolution  emasculated  of  all  that 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  453.  2  Ibid.,  III.  29. 

3  He  had  held  office  in  the  Provisional  Government,  had  attempted 
to  stem  the  tide  of  insurrection  in  the  summer  of  1848,  and,  having 
failed,  had  retired  into  private  life,  occupying  himself  with  the  writing 
of  books  and  articles  on  political  and  economic  subjects.  After  the 
war  he  returned  to  politics,  and  was  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  in 
1883. 


HER   PRE-WAR   SALON  101 

was  most  powerful  in  it.     Michelet  .  .  .  has  accepted  the 
Revolution,  including  the  Terror."  x 

"  What  !  "  exclaimed  Duclerc,  "  the  French  Revolution 
may  not  be  considered  apart  from  its  ferocity?  " 
Ferocity  which  was  necessary." 

"  And  which  may  again  become  necessary." 

"  That  may  be." 

"  When  Peyrat  and  Duclerc  were  discussing,"  comments 
their  hostess,  "  arguments  flew  so  rapidly  from  side  to 
side  that  we  listened  without  interrupting.  Moreover, 
there  was  not  the  slightest  chance  of  getting  in  a  phrase 
or  even  a  word  edgeways." 

Though  politics  held  the  first  place  in  Juliette's  salon, 
as  we  have  said,  literature  and  art  were  by  no  means 
neglected. 

The  hostess  herself,  an  ardent  romanticist  and  idealist, 
if  ever  there  were  one,  had  no  sympathy  with  the  realism 
which  in  the  middle  sixties  was  beginning  to  invade 
French  art  and  literature.  Manet's  "  Olympia,"  when 
it  was  exhibited  in  the  Salon,  filled  her  with  loathing. 
When  she  first  saw  it,  she  knew  not  whether  to  laugh  or 
to  cry. 

"  Quelle  horreur  et  aussi  quels  rires,"  she  exclaims. 
"  Void  V Olympia  de  Manet.  Nue,  Stendue,  accoudie  sur 
un  drap  blanc.  Derriere  elle  une  negresse  tient  un  bouquet. 
Sur  le  drap  blanc  un  chat  noir  deteint  et  laisse  la  trace  de  ses 
pattes  sales.  Germinie  Lacerteux  en  litter ature,  le  chat  noir 
aux  pattes  sales  en  peinture,  cest  complet !  0  ideal,  ideal  ! 
Je  vais  revoir  Picardia." 

The  de  Goncourts'  novel,  Germinie  Lacerteux,  on  its 
recent  appearance,  had  been  vehemently  discussed  in  the 
Rue  de  Rivoli.  "  It  is  Lucrece  Borgia  graillonnante^ 
exclaimed  Lamartine's  niece,  Mme.  de  Pierreclos.  And 
most  of  her  fellow-guests  as  well  as  her  hostess  were  up 
in  arms  at  once  when  some  one  described  the  de  Goncourts 

1  Quinet  and  Michelet  had  both  recently  published  histories  of  the 
Revolution.  The  appearance  of  these  volumes  ended  that  close  friendship 
which  until  then  had  united  them.  For  each  regarded  himself  as  having 
said  the  last  word  on  the  subject;  and  according  to  Mme.  Adam,  who 
disliked  Michelet,  the  latter  could  not  forgive  his  sometime  friend  for  not 
having  mentioned  him  in  his  book  (see  Souvenirs,  III.  314).  Michelet 
was  astonished,  he  wrote  to  Quinet,  at  this  amazing  neglect  of  one  qui 
seul  avait  fraye  Us  votes.11 


102  MADAME   ADAM 

and  Flaubert  as  the  leaders  of  the  realistic  school.  Flaubert, 
they  contended,  would  never  have  condescended  to  wallow 
in  the  mud  which  seemed  as  much  the  de  Goncourts' 
natural  element  as  it  was  to  be  that  of  their  disciple  Zola. 
For  the  author  of  La  Terre  and  for  all  his  tribe  Juliette 
has  ever  manifested  an  extreme  aversion. 

From  the  de  Goncourts'  realism  our  passionate  idealist 
turned  with  relief  to  the  classicism  of  her  Grecian  friends, 
Ronchaud,  Saint-Victor,  Menard,  and  to  those  poets  of 
the  new  Parnassian  school  who  shared  her  enthusiasm  for 
the  gods  and  ideals  of  antiquity.1 

Juliette's  Salon  Minuscule,  as  she  modestly  called  it, 
had  now  become  a  regular  institution  in  Parisian  intel- 
lectual society.  Possibly  it  had  been  a  greater  success 
than  its  originator,  Mine.  d'Agoult,  had  ever  anticipated. 
Possibly  this  may  have  accounted  for  the  clouds  which 
now  began  to  appear  on  the  horizon  of  Juliette's  friendship 
with  that  great  lady,  clouds  which  threatened  to  repeat 
in  the  nineteenth  century  that  earlier  story  of  the  jealous 
Mme.  du  Deffand  and  her  gifted  young  protegee,  Mile. 
de  Lespinasse.  Certain  of  Mme.  d'Agoult' s  friends  were 
thought  to  be  too  often  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  Consequently, 
Juliette  began  to  be  coldly  received  in  the  Rue  Presbourg. 
Mischief-makers  were  not  lacking  :  they  told  the  Countess 
that  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  her  works  were  somewhat  severely 
criticised.  While  Juliette  was  at  Bruyeres  in  the  winter 
of  1866-67  she  received  a  letter  from  Mme.  de  Pierreclos  2 
warning  her  that  somehow  she  was  not  in  the  Countess's 
good  books. 

"  Attention,  petite  Juliette !  "  wrote  Lamartine's  niece. 
"  Vous  nStes  pas  en  faveur.  Je  ne  jurerais  qua  votre 
retour  vous  ne  subissiez  une  bourrasque  qui  vous  ecarte  a 
tout  jamais  de  la  Rue  de  Presbourg." 

In  the  crisis  now  approaching,  one  of  the  most  momentous 
of  Juliette's  life,  Mme.  d'Agoult  vouchsafed  her  young 
friend  no  sympathy  whatever. 

For  some  years,  as  we  have  seen,  Juliette  had  been 
living  apart  from  her  husband.  M.  Lamessine  had  used 
to  the  full  the  powers,  which  until  a  few  years  ago  the 
French  law  gave  a  husband,  of  appropriating  his  wife's 
earnings.  Little  Alice  lived  in  terror  that  one  day  her 
father  might  even  claim  that  house  and  garden  on  the 
1  See  post,  209.  2  Souvenirs,  III.  123. 


HER   PRE-WAR   SALON  103 

Golfe  Juan,  the  beloved  Bruyercs,  where  she  and  her 
mother  spent  happy  winter  months.  "  You  must  make 
haste  and  grow  up,"  Dr.  Lambert  used  to  say  to  his 
granddaughter,  "  and  then  you  will  marry  and  Bruyeres 
shall  be  your  dowry." 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1867  that  Juliette  received 
from  her  lawyer,  M.  Matthieu,  a  letter  asking  her  to  come 
and  see  him  on  a  certain  evening  about  a  communication 
he  had  received  from  her  husband.1  M.  Lamessine,  in 
return  for  15,000  francs,  consented  to  relinquish  his  claim 
to  the  royalties  on  his  wife's  books  published  before  their 
separation.  Distressed  by  the  exorbitance  of  this  demand, 
Juliette  and  Alice,  who  had  accompanied  her,  on  leaving 
the  lawyer,  tried  to  divert  themselves  by  watching  the 
crowds  of  merry-makers  in  the  Champs  Elysees.  All 
Paris  seemed  en  j'Ste,  for  it  was  the  summer  of  the  Great 
Exhibition.  But  these  gay  sights  afforded  Juliette  no 
solace.  Tired  and  sad,  she  and  Alice  returned  home. 
On  the  table  lay  a  letter  marked  urgent.  "  Never  mind," 
said  Juliette  to  herself,  "  I  have  enough  worries  for  one 
evening.  I  will  not  open  the  letter  till  morning."  It 
was  late.  Her  father  and  mother  had  gone  to  bed.  She 
wished  her  daughter  a  sad  good-night  and  followed  her 
parents'  example.  But  she  could  not  sleep,  neither  could 
she  forget  that  letter  marked  urgent.  The  writing  seemed 
familiar.  She  rose  and  read  it.  The  letter  was  from  her 
lawyer. 

"  Dear  Madam,"  it  ran,  "  among  the  papers  which  I 
had  set  aside  to  finish  examining  to-night  is  a  letter  from 
Algeria,  which  tells  me  that  your  husband,  M.  Lamessine, 
died  six  weeks  ago.  .  .  .  Thus  the  question  of  your  royalties 
is  decided.2 — Yours,  etc.  .  .  ." 

Juliette  has  never  been  one  of  those  who  feign  senti- 
ments they  do  not  feel.  About  her  first  husband's  death 
she  is  in  her  Souvenirs  perfectly  frank  :  she  makes  no 
attempt  to  conceal  the  feeling  of  intense  relief  which  the 
news  brought  to  her.  Dr.  Lambert,  when  he  heard  it, 
exclaimed  :  "  I  know  some  one  who  will  be  glad  to  have 
me  for  a  father-in-law." 

That  "  some  one "   was  Edmond  Adam.     One  of  the 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  131.  -  Ibid.,  133. 


104  MADAME   ADAM 

pious  founders  of  Juliette's  salon,  he  had  also  been  a 
member  of  Mme.  d'Agoult's  circle.  Originally  a  journalist 
on  the  staff  of  the  famous  National,  he  had  made  a 
considerable  fortune  and  had  become  one  of  the  main- 
stays of  the  Comptoir  d'Escompte,  a  republican  bank 
founded  by  his  friend  Alessandro  Bixio  and  others.  But 
that  which  had  above  all  things  attracted  Juliette  to  the 
man  who  was  to  be  her  second  husband — for  he  was  con- 
siderably Juliette's  senior — was  his  uncompromising  repub- 
licanism, dating  back  to  the  Revolution  of  1848,  in  which 
he  had  played  a  prominent  part.  Edmond  Adam  united 
to  high  principles  and  fervent  idealism  a  distinguished 
appearance  and  ingratiating  manners.  Among  his  friends 
he  passed  for  a  pleasant  fellow.  "  A  fine  old  Senator  " 
he  appeared  some  years  later  to  a  foreigner  who  visited 
Mme.  Adam's  salon.  "The  chivalrous  Adam,"  she  herself 
used  to  call  him. 

She  noticed  him  first  at  a  Wagner  concert,  standing 
opposite  to  her  by  a  mirror  in  which  their  eyes  met. 
"Who  is  that  tall  gentleman?"  she  inquired  of  Mme. 
d'Agoult,  who  sat  next  to  her. 

"  Edmond  Adam,"  replied  the  Countess.  "  We  are 
great  friends.  You  don't  see  him  at  my  receptions  because 
of  Girardin,  whom  he  is  always  wishing  to  fight.  He  will 
fight  for  anything  or  nothing.  After  Carrel's  death,1  when 
Adam  was  editor  of  an  Angers  newspaper,  Armand  Marrast 
invited  him  to  join  the  staff  of  the  National.  His  friends 
are  Duclerc,2  Grevy,3  Carnot,4  all  abstentionistes,  and  so  is 
Adam,  though  he  is  essentially  a  man  of  action.  .  .  .  On 
the  2nd  of  December  5  he  was  a  Councillor  of  State.  But 
he  refused  to  serve  the  Empire.  ...  I  don't  know  any 
man  who  is  more  highly  esteemed,  and  I  like  him  very 
much.  .  .  .  He  is  fidelity  and  devotion  itself." 

During  the  insurrection  of  June  1848,  Adam  with  his 
friend  Bixio,6  both  of  them  unarmed,  had  gone  up  on  to 
the  Paris  barricades  to  endeavour  to  restore  order.  After- 
wards, when  the  National  Assembly  wished  to  decorate 

1  Armand  Carrel,  editor  of  the  National,  killed  in  a  duel  by  Girardin. 

2  See  ante,  100. 

3  Afterwards  President  of  the  French  Republic. 

4  Hippolyte,  see  ante,  68. 

8  1851,  at  the  time  of  Louis  Napoleon's  coup  d'etat. 
8  See  ante,  76. 


HER   PRE-WAR   SALON  105 

the  hero  with  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  Adam 
refused  it  on  the  ground  that  he  could  not  wear  a  decora- 
tion won  in  a  civil  war,  and,  moreover,  that  he  had  merely 
done  his  duty.  "  Ronchaud,"  added  the  Countess,  "  has 
just  told  me  that  he  [Adam]  has  read  your  book,1  and 
that  he  would  like  me  to  introduce  him  to  you." 

But  Juliette,  moved  by  a  sentiment  not  uncommon  in 
women  of  deep  feelings,  a  kind  of  subconscious  fear  of  a 
man  who  has  profoundly  impressed  them,  refused  that 
evening  to  make  her  new  admirer's  acquaintance.  Later, 
on  the  publication  of  her  book  Mon  Village,  he  wrote  his 
congratulations.  She  replied  somewhat  curtly.  But  her 
correspondent  was  not  discouraged.  Some  time  after- 
wards, when  she  was  at  the  theatre  with  her  friend, 
Mmc.  Fauvety,2  whom  he  knew,  he  joined  their  party. 
Mmc.  Fauvety  admired  him  no  less  than  Mme.  d'Agoult. 
Dr.  Lambert,  too,  had  a  high  opinion  of  his  daughter's 
new  acquaintance.  "  He  is  pure  gold,"  said  Juliette's 
father,  "  and  when  you  sec  him  next  you  can  tell  him  your 
father  would  like  to  shake  hands  with  him ;  for  he  is  one 
of  those — and  they  are  few — of  whom  an  old  republican 
may  be  proud."  3 

Juliette's  betrothal  to  Edmond  Adam  took  place  on  the 
day  after  she  received  her  lawyer's  letter.  Congratula- 
tions poured  in  from  all  her  friends,  with  the  one  exception 
of  Mme.  d'Agoult.  Yet  she  was  aware  of  her  young 
friend's  happiness.  Ronchaud  had  told  her.  Since  Mme. 
de  Pierreclos'  warning  letter,4  Juliette  and  her  old  friend 
had  not  met.  Now,  with  some  misgiving,  Juliette  deter- 
mined to  go  and  see  her.  She  received  her  kindly.  But 
in  a  few  minutes  the  discordant  note  was  struck.5  "  The 
misfortune  of  being  a  widow,"  said  the  Countess,  "  is  that 
one  is  seized  by  a  foolish  desire  to  remarry.  But  I  don't 
think  you  capable  of  such  folly.  An  intelligent  woman 
should  remain  free  and  mistress  of  her  own  thoughts." 

"  I  have  greater  need  of  happiness  than  of  freedom," 
replied  Juliette. 

Then  followed  a  distressing  scene.  Mme.  d'Agoult 
completely  lost  her  temper.  She  told  Juliette  she  hoped 
never  to  see  her  again.  They  parted ;  and  the  Countess's 
wish  was  fulfilled.     But  when,  some  time  later,  Juliette 

1  Idees  Anti-Proudhoniennes.  2  See  ante,  48. 

3  Souvenirs,  II.  236.  *  See  ante,  102.  5  Souvenirs,  III.  136. 


106  MADAME   ADAM 

heard  that  her  former  friend  had  entered  as  a  patient  the 
house  of  the  famous  nerve  specialist,  Dr.  Blanche,  she 
felt  that  Mme.  d'Agoult's  lack  of  self-control  on  that 
sorrowful  day  was  accounted  for. 

In  the  spring  of  the  following  year  Juliette  Lamber 
and  Edmond  Adam  were  married.  The  intervening  winter 
had  been  spent  on  the  Golfe  Juan,  where  Adam,  like  other 
friends  of  Juliette,  the  Texiers,  for  example,  had  built 
himself  a  villa,  Le  Grand  Pin.  There  had  been  a  some- 
what heated  discussion  as  to  whether  after  marriage  the 
Adams  should  spend  their  winters  at  Le  Grand  Pin  or  at 
Bruyeres.  Juliette  could  not  tolerate  the  idea  of  leaving 
the  house  which  she  had  built  and  the  garden  she  had 
planned.  Though,  as  she  had  told  Mme.  d'Agoult,  she 
longed  more  for  happiness  than  for  freedom,  she  was 
determined  to  hold  her  own  in  her  new  life.  Already  she 
had  consented  to  abandon  her  flat  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli 
for  one  in  a  famous  house,  la  Maison  Sallandrouze,1  on 
the  Boulevard  Poissonniere,  opposite  Adam's  favourite 
restaurant,  the  Cafe  Brebant.  She  was  making  no  small 
sacrifice  by  consenting  to  leave  what  seemed  to  her  the 
hub  of  the  universe,  that  Rue  de  Rivoli  with  its  delight- 
ful proximity  to  the  Louvre,  to  the  Corps  Legislatif, 
the  doings  of  which  this  ardent  young  politician  followed 
feverishly,  and  to  those  Tuileries  Gardens,  where,  while 
Alice  was  at  play,  her  mother,  in  conversation  with  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  on  their  way  from  the  Assembly,  could 
glean  all  the  latest  political  news.  Not  unnaturally, 
therefore,  Juliette's  keen  sense  of  justice  was  outraged 
when  Adam  asked  her  to  make  the  further  sacrifice  and 
give  up  her  beloved  Bruyeres  in  favour  of  Le  Grand  Pin, 
although  this  villa  was  much  more  spacious  and  imposing 
than  her  own  dear  home. 

"  I  entreat  you,"  pleaded  Adam,2  "  do  consent  to  live 
at  Le  Grand  Pin  for  at  least  two  or  three  years  after 
our  marriage.  I  really  cannot  run  the  risk  of  being  called 
M.  Lamber  in  a  district  where  you  are  so  well  known." 

"  Oh,  you  need  not  fear ;  I  can  assure  you  I  shall  be 
called  Mme.  Adam." 

"  No,   I  don't  think  so,"   persisted  Adam.  ..."  And 

1  It  was  said  to  have  been  bombarded  during  the  coup  d'etat  of  December 
2,  1851. 

2  Souvenirs,  III.  249. 


HER  PRE-WAR  SALON  107 

however  I  may  love  your  name  when  borne  by  you,  it 
would  humiliate  me." 

"  Very  well  then,  I  will  keep  it,"  retorted  Juliette. 

They  parted,  and  did  not  meet  for  several  days.  They 
were  both  miserable.  Then  that  kind  physician,  the  good 
Dr.  Maurc,  Thiers'  friend,  effected  a  reconciliation. 

"  Oh,  you  fools,"  he  cried,  "  at  your  age  to  lay  down 
conditions  and  to  be  obstinate.  When  happiness  runs  to 
meet  you,  you  turn  away.     Be  reconciled  at  once." 

Adam  holds  out  his  arms.  Juliette  hesitates.  Dr.  Maure 
makes  a  grimace.  "  He  will  live  at  Bruyeres.  Embrace 
him.  But  it  costs  him  dear.  It  is  the  greatest  sacrifice 
he  can  make." 

The  quarrel  was  at  an  end.  Juliette  threw  herself  into 
her  lover's  arms.     He  asked  her  pardon. 

"  I  ought  to  have  understood,  Juliette,"  he  said.  "  I 
was  mad.  I  ought  to  have  realised  that  your  beloved 
Bruyeres,  which  you  had  made  with  your  own  hands,  you 
could  not  leave  for  another  house  so  close.  It  was  with 
money  only  that  I  created  Le  Grand  Pin.  To-morrow  I 
will  summon  the  builders.  I  will  enlarge  Bruyeres,  and 
next  year,  when  we  return,  we  shall  be  at  home  in  your 
own  house." 

The  year  1868,  the  year  of  her  second  marriage,  opened 
well  for  Juliette.  "  Tellement  riante"  she  writes,  "  que  fy 
vois  tout  en  beau.  Je  suis  heureuse  aidant  qiion  pent 
imaginer.  .  .  ."  x  As  she  awoke  on  New  Year's  Day, 
Alice  whispered,  "  Dear  mother,  I  wish  you  what  you 
already  possess." 

Her  father,  who  had  not  come  to  Bruyeres  that  year, 
wrote  that  he,  too,  was  the  happiest  of  men.  For  cet 
itudiant  rive  gauche,  ce  fanatique  de  science,  as  Juliette 
called  him,  was  now  at  liberty  to  quit  cette  rue  imperiale, 
as  he  called  the  Rue  de  Rivoli,  infestee  par  les  allies  et 
venues  de  V empereur  et  de  V imperatrice,  and  to  inhabit  the 
quarter  of  his  dreams,  to  take  a  flat  in  the  Rue  S.  Jacques 
close  to  the  lecture-rooms  and  laboratories  of  those  eminent 
scientists,  Paul  Bert  and  Claude  Bernard. 

In  every  respect  it  was  well  that  the  two  families  should 

separate.     The  discordant  temperaments  of  Juliette  and 

her  mother  rendered  it  impossible  for  them  to  agree  long 

together.     Neither  their  summers  in  Paris  nor  their  winters 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  193. 


108  MADAME   ADAM 

on  the  Riviera  had  been  very  happy.  And  as  for  Juliette, 
the  bliss  of  life  with  a  husband  who  adored  her  and  shared 
all  her  interests  soon  compensated  her  for  the  loss  of  her 
favourite  street.  "  Nous  sommes  heureux  a  rendre  jaloux" 
she  wrote  soon  after  her  marriage.1  "  But,  on  the  contrary, 
our  friends  enjoy  our  happiness.  Their  assiduity  in  visit- 
ing us  grows.  They  love  our  home,  and  they  cannot  pass 
along  the  Boulevard  Poissonniere  without  coming  up  to  see 
us,  especially  in  the  evening." 

Thus  the  minuscule  salon  of  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  was 
transformed  into  the  Great  Salon  of  the  Boulevard 
Poissonniere. 

In  the  two  troubled  years  which  were  to  elapse  before 
the  outbreak  of  war,  the  Adams'  salon  was  to  serve,  as 
we  have  said,  as  a  meeting-place  for  representatives  of  all 
parties  in  opposition :  for  absentionistes  and  for  sermen- 
tistes,  for  the  elder  republicans  who  followed  M.  Thiers, 
and  for  les  Jeunes  who  followed  Gambetta. 

"  Bientot"  writes  Juliette,  "  noire  salon  reunit  toutes  les 
opinions,  depuis  les  orleanistes  jusquaux  irreconciliables."  2 

Mme.  Adam's  own  attitude  remained  irreconcilably 
abstentioniste.  She  had  no  sympathy  whatever  with  those 
who,  like  her  husband's  friend,  Jules  Grevy,  took  the  oath 
to  the  Empire  in  order  to  upset  it.  "  Prefer  un  serment 
quon  est  resolu  a  ne  pas  tenir,"  she  writes,  "  cest  etre 
deloyal  et  coupable."  3  Imagine  her  horror,  therefore, 
when  she  found  her  own  husband  wavering — first  inclined 
to  listen  to  the  arguments  of  his  friend  Thiers,  and  then, 
on  the  eve  of  the  1869  election,  announcing  that  he  is 
going  to  his  native  Normandy,  there  to  stand  as  candidate 
for  the  village  of  Brionne.4 

"  And  you  will  take  the  oath — you?  " 

"  Yes;  I  have  thought  it  well  over.  Whatever  objec- 
tion you  may  have  to  offer  has  been  considered  and 
rejected." 

"  It  seemed,"  writes  Juliette,  "  as  if  a  gulf  had  opened 
between  us.  What  I  could  not  say  to  him  when  he  started, 
I  wrote  to  him."  With  her  letter  she  enclosed  others  from 
friends  who  had  written  expressing  their  astonishment  at 
his  decision.     One  was  from  Louis  Blanc. 

"  That  the  young  who  never  witnessed  the  crime  of 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  251.  2  Ibid.,  307. 

3  Ibid.,  261.  *  Ibid.,  363. 


HER  PRE-WAR   SALON  109 

December  should  swear  allegiance  to  the  murderer  I  can 
understand,"  he  wrote.  "  But  how  can  one  who  saw  the 
blood  flow,  who  heard  the  oath  broken,  forget,  if  his  heart 
be  kind  and  loyal?  " 

One  morning,  shortly  after  this  packet  had  been  dis- 
patched, Mine.  Adam  received  a  telegram  from  Brionne 
containing  one  word  :  "  Come."  She  and  Alice  obeyed. 
They  arrived  at  Brionne  on  the  very  day  when  Adam  was 
to  take  the  oath.  "  I  could  not  take  it,"  he  said,  "  with- 
out being  sure  that  you  approve  and  that  you  realise  its 
significance.  Have  you  become  any  less  narrow,  any  less 
bigoted,  Juliette?  "  x 

But  no,  Mme.  Adam  was  as  resolute  as  ever.  And  her 
husband,  yielding  to  her  arguments,  or  unwilling  to  create 
between  himself  and  his  wife  an  impassable  breach,  told 
his  electors  that  he  found  himself  incapable  of  taking  the 
oath.  "  The  candidate  who  replaced  him,"  adds  Juliette, 
"  did  so  well  that  the  electors  bore  him  no  grudge.  As 
for  me,  I  am  prouder  than  ever  to  bear  his  name." 

Leon  Gambetta  was  now,  as  the  acknowledged  leader 
of  that  wing  of  the  republican  party  known  as  les  Jeunes, 
attracting  considerable  attention.  He  was  a  complete 
meridional,  for  his  parents  were  a  Provencal  mother  and 
a  father  of  Genoese  origin.  He  was  born  in  1837  at  Cahors, 
where  his  father  kept  a  small  grocer's  shop.  Leon  and 
one  sister  were  their  only  children.  It  having  been  pro- 
phesied to  Mme.  Gambetta,  before  her  son's  birth,  that 
he  would  one  day  be  a  great  man,  she  denied  herself  in 
every  way  in  order  to  give  him  the  best  of  educations. 
He  entered  the  legal  profession  and  went  to  Paris.  There, 
among  the  students  of  the  Latin  quarter,  he  rapidly  made 
his  mark.  No  students'  manifestation  was  complete 
without  him,  neither  was  any  fete.  He  showed  a  mar- 
vellous capacity  for  repeating  verses  and  drinking  beer. 
He  hated  the  Empire  with  exuberance,  but  not  with 
fanaticism.  He  was  well  read.  Montaigne  and  Rabelais 
were  his  favourite  authors,  and  he  was  seldom  seen  with- 
out a  tattered  copy  of  the  latter  protruding  from  his 
slovenly  coat  pocket.  Passionately  interested  in  public 
affairs,  he  hardly  missed  a  sitting  of  the  Corps  Legislatif. 
He  was  equally  assiduous  at  the  Cafe  Voltaire  and  the 
Cafe  Procope.  There,  no  matter  what  subject  was  under 
1  Souvenirs,  III.  364. 


110  MADAME   ADAM 

discussion — books,  plays,  women,  or  politics — he  never 
failed  to  monopolise  the  conversation. 

Gambetta  first  appears  in  Mme.  Adam's  Souvenirs  when 
Eugene  Pelletan  describes  him  to  her  as  one  of  the  riff-raff 
of  the  party  (les  voyous  du  parti).1  Later  Girardin  in 
Mme.  d'Agoult's  salon  had  praised  his  exuberance  tempered 
by  common  sense. 

"  Vous  nimaginez  pas  la  vitalite  de  ce  gaillard-la"  said 
Girardin.2  "  If  only  he  were  better  put  on,  I  would  intro- 
duce him  to  you.  But  it  is  impossible.  Nevertheless,  he 
is  a  man  of  letters." 

But  soon  Juliette  began  to  feel  that  without  ce  gaillard-la, 
ce  jeune  monstre,  ce  dompteur  des  joules,  as  Gambetta  was 
beginning  to  be  called,  her  Grand  Salon  was  incomplete. 
Adam  was  meeting  Gambetta  constantly  at  Laurent 
Pichat's,  and  was  ever  quoting  to  his  wife  this  rising 
young  demagogue's  astute  sayings. 

"  We  must  introduce  him  into  our  circle ;  you  must 
bring  him  to  me,"  said  Juliette.3 

"  But,"  objected  Adam,  "  he  is  very  unfledged.  Neither 
in  manner  nor  in  words  does  he  know  any  restraint.  His 
accent  is  impossible.  He  is  insolent  in  discussion.  More- 
over, I  do  not  wish  you  to  hear  him  talk  of  the  men  of 
1848." 

For  the  idealists  of  1848,  for  their  lack  of  worldly  wisdom, 
for  their  failure  to  take  advantage  of  the  situation  they 
had  created,  Gambetta  did  not  scruple  to  express  his 
profound  contempt. 

"  But,"  interjected  Juliette,  "is  he  really  out  of  the 
common?     Is  he  worth  knowing?     Yes  or  no?  " 

"  Yes,  he  is  out  of  the  common.  He  is  worth  knowing. 
But  he  is  Bohemian,  vulgar,  brutal.  His  manner  of  life  is 
extraordinary.  He  is  a  typical  man  of  the  masses,  as 
Danton,  plus  retors.  He  has  an  air  of  authority  and 
dominates  the  conversation,  no  matter  where  he  is." 

"  We  will  invite  him,"  said  Juliette.  Nevertheless, 
before  making  the  final  plunge,  she  took  the  precaution 
of  consulting  her  old  friend,  Hetzel,  the  publisher,  who 
knew  about  Gambetta  through  a  mutual  friend,  Alphonse 
Daudet,  another  brilliant  young  Provencal,  who  was  at 
that  time  making  his  mark  in  Paris. 

Hetzel  pronounced  the  jeune  monstre  to  be  quite  im- 
1  Souvenirs,  II.  373.  2  Ibid.,  416.  3  Ibid.,  Ill,  309. 


HER   PRE-WAR  SALON  111 

possible.  "  You  should  hear  Alphonse  Daudet  describe 
Gambetta's  southern  clan,  the  clan  of  the  bas-midi,  com- 
posed of  howling  Gascons,  of  blatant  windbags  of  Pro- 
vencals. He  himself  a  kind  of  political  commercial  traveller 
.  .  .  provincial  to  the  marrow  of  his  bones,  a  provincial 
grocer  withal,  one-eyed  and  chemise  et  cravate  et  pantalonne 
en  degringolade." 

Such  a  picture  gave  Mme.  Adam  pause.  But  her 
husband  pronounced  it  a  caricature.  Alphonse  Daudet 
had  only  seen  Gambetta  at  restaurants.  In  Laurent 
Pichat's  salon  he  was  better.  Certainly  he  was  too  vehe- 
ment, but  he  was  not  a  windbag.  So  he  was  invited  to 
one  of  the  Adams'  famous  Friday  dinner-parties  to  meet  a 
number  of  distinguished  guests,  with  most  of  whom  he  was 
previously  acquainted  :  his  friend  Laurent  Pichat,  Eugene 
Pelletan,  Jules  Ferry,1  Hetzel,  who  came  to  form  his  own 
opinion  of  le  monstre,  those  two  faithful  friends  Challemel- 
Lacour  and  de  Ronchaud,  d'Artigues,  Duclerc,  the  Orleanist 
de  Reims.  Vhote  exceptionnel,2  as  Mme.  Adam  puts  it, 
was  another  Orleanist,  no  less  a  personage  than  the  grand- 
son of  General  La  Fayette,  the  Marquis  Jules  de  Lasteyrie. 
He  had  fought  in  Portugal  for  Don  Pedro  in  1832;  he  had 
sat  on  the  left  centre  in  the  Chambre  des  Deputes  under 
Louis  Philippe;  he  had  been  exiled  in  1852,  but  had  re- 
turned after  the  amnesty.  Now,  backed  by  Thiers,  he 
was  endeavouring,  as  candidate  for  Seine  et  Marne,  to 
re-enter  political  life. 

Adam  had  told  the  Marquis  that  he  was  to  meet  Gam- 
betta, and  full  of  curiosity,  congratulating  his  hostess  on 
her  boldness,  Lasteyrie  arrived  early.  "  I  shall  tell  Thiers 
about  this  party,"  he  said,  "  for  he  is  deeply  interested  in 
le  jeune  monstre." 

Gambetta,  imagining  that  he  was  going  to  dine  with 
a  blue-stocking,  dressed  anyhow.  He  arrived  wearing  a 
nondescript  kind  of  coat,  with  a  suggestion  of  a  flannel 
shirt  appearing  between  his  high-buttoned  waistcoat  and 
collar.3  He  looked  thunderstruck  when  he  saw  every  one 
else  in  evening  dress.  Eugene  Pelletan,  who  knew  him 
well,  presented  him  to  his  hostess.  Adam  was  talking  in 
another  salon.  Gambetta  begged  Mme.  Adam  to  excuse 
his  not  having  dressed. 

1  Later  Prime  Minister  of  France.  ■  Souvenir*,  III.  311. 

8  Ibid.,  312. 


112  MADAME  ADAM 

"  If  I  had  known,"  he  said. 

"  You  would  not  have  come,"  she  replied,  laughing. 
"  That  is  not  nice  of  you." 

M.  de  Lasteyrie,  who  was  generally  most  tolerant,  whis- 
pered in  her  ear.  .  .  .  "  If  he  had  come  in  a  workman's 
blouse,  I  might  have  passed  him  .  .  .  but  .  .  .  that !  " 

Jules  Lasteyrie  was  to  have  taken  Mme.  Adam  in  to 
dinner. 

"  The  only  way  to  rehabilitate  him,  my  dear  friend," 
she  said,  "  is  to  give  him  the  first  place.  I  deprive  you  of 
it.     But  I  am  sure  you  will  agree  with  me." 

The  Marquis  assumed  his  fine  lordly  air  and  replied  : 
"  You  are  right,  the  servants  might  neglect  him.  Besides, 
we  shall  see  whether  he  understands  le  grand." 

The  hostess  took  Gambetta's  arm.  He  was  overwhelmed 
at  being  placed  on  her  right.  Lasteyrie  sat  on  her  left. 
Adam  could  not  believe  his  eyes. 

Hardly  had  they  sat  down  at  table  when  Gambetta, 
leaning  towards  Mme.  Adam  whispered — 

"  Madame,  I  shall  never  forget  the  lesson  you  have  taught 
me."     Evidently  he  understood  le  grand. 

Many  another  lesson  was  Juliette  to  teach  her  illustrious 
friend.  In  matters  sartorial  and  social  she  was  to  find  him 
an  apt  pupil.  As  Mme.  d'Agoult  had  transformed  the 
provincial  young  person  into  une  grande  dame,  so  Juliette 
was  to  turn  the  Provencal  grocer,  the  political  commercial 
traveller,  into  a  man  of  the  world. 

When  some  ten  years  later  she  saw  him  at  the  opera 
faultlessly  attired,  with  light  gloves,  a  hat  slightly  tipped 
over  one  ear,  a  gardenia  in  his  buttonhole,  she  felt  proud 
of  her  handiwork. 

While  Gambetta  was  ready  enough  to  employ  Adam's 
tailor,  he  was  not  ready  to  adopt  all  his  or  his  wife's  political 
opinions.  At  that  first  dinner-party  Mme.  Adam  and  her 
guest,  as  Adam  had  foreseen,  disagreed  on  the  question  of 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Empire  and  on  their  estimate 
of  the  republicans  of  1848. 

Despite  these  differences,  however,  for  the  next  seven 
years,  at  least,  bonds  of  mutual  admiration  united  Mme. 
Adam  and  Gambetta.  During  the  national  disasters  now 
approaching  her  esteem  for  him  steadily  increased;1  she 
admired  not  his  patriotism  only,  but  his  wisdom,  his  modera- 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  143,  154,  156,  161. 


HER  PRE-WAR  SALON  113 

tion ;    she  came  to  regard  him  as  the  one  hope  of  la  patrie, 
the  cariatide  of  her  beloved  France.1 

It  was  by  his  speech  at  the  famous  trial  of  Delescluzc 
that  Gambetta  first  established  his  fame  as  an  orator.  The 
days  that  proceeded  that  trial,  writes  the  historian  Pierre  de 
la  Gorce,2  in  his  vivid  account  of  these  incidents,  were  les 
derniers  de  sa  vie  obscure.  That  trial  and  the  incidents 
leading  up  to  it  thrilled  with  excitement  Mme.  Adam's 
salon.  They  originated  in  a  manifestation  which  had 
taken  place  on  the  2nd  of  November,  1868,  round  the  grave 
of  the  republican  leader  Baudin.  After  Louis  Napoleon's 
coup  d'etat  of  December  1851,  Baudin,  an  ardent  republican 
deputy,  had  endeavoured  to  incite  the  Parisian  populace 
to  resist.  They  taunted  him  with  caring  chiefly  to  secure 
the  daily  sum  of  twenty-five  francs,  which  he  received  as 
a  Member  of  Parliament.  "  Why  should  we  be  killed  for 
your  twenty-five  francs?"  they  cried.  "You  will  see 
how  one  can  die  for  twenty-five  francs,"  cried  Baudin,  and 
he  climbed  on  to  the  barricade,  expecting  the  crowd 
to  follow  him.  But  troops  were  coming  up  the  street. 
Baudin  was  seen  to  wave  a  flag,  and  then  to  fall  dead  after 
having  called  to  the  people  to  come  on.  The  republicans, 
who  gathered  round  Baudin' s  grave  in  the  Montmartre 
Cemetery,  did  not  lose  this  opportunity  of  expressing  their 
opinions  of  the  Imperial  Government  and  of  prophesying 
its  speedy  dissolution.  They  took  themselves  very  seriously, 
and  rather  expected  their  little  group  of  some  sixty  persons 
to  be  dispersed  by  the  authorities.  But  what  they  thought 
to  be  the  roll  of  the  guns  of  approaching  troops  turned 
out  to  be  nothing  more  than  an  announcement  that  it 
was  time  to  close  the  cemetery.  Afterwards,  however,  it 
occurred  to  certain  Republican  journalists,  first  to  Dele- 
scluze  of  Le  Reveil,  later  to  Peyrat  of  UAvenir  National 
and  to  Challemel-Lacour  of  La  Revue  Politique  to  open  a 
subscription  for  a  monument  to  be  erected  to  Baudin. 
The  Imperial  Government,  ever  with  its  eye  on  the  press, 
determined  to  nip  in  the  bud  this  project  of  honouring  one 
of  its  arch  enemies.  Delescluze,  Peyrat  and  Challemel, 
with  certain  of  the  manifestants,  were  summoned  before 
the  Sixth  Chamber  Correctionelle.  It  was  Edmond  Adam 
who  had  urged  Peyrat  to  bring  UAvenir  National  into 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  309. 

2  Histoire  du  Second  Empire,  chap.  v.  p.  412. 


114  MADAME   ADAM 

the  movement.  His  friend  Thiers  had  rated  him  soundly 
for  so  doing.  "  Cette  affaire  est  insensee,"  said  le  grand 
petit  homme,1  always  the  soul  of  moderation.  "  Cest  de 
la  faction  !  Ces  choses-ld  conduisent  aux  emeutes  et  aux 
revolutions ." 

"  You  are  mistaken,"  replied  Adam  calmly.  "  We  are 
placing  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  opposition.  You 
will  soon  recognise  it.  The  Empire's  enemies  figure  in  the 
subscribers'  lists,  and  those  lists  will  one  day  furnish  a  basis 
for  a  coalition,  which  you  will  find  useful." 

A  few  days  later  M.  Thiers  admitted  that  Adam  was  right. 
This  eventful  year  was  now  drawing  to  a  close.  The  late 
autumn  had  come,  and  it  was  time  for  the  Adams  to  shut 
up  their  salon  and  go  to  Bruyeres  for  the  winter.  "  But 
how,"  writes  Juliette,  "  could  we  discontinue  our  evenings 
in  the  midst  of  so  much  agitation,  when  our  friends  passing 
along  the  boulevard  like  to  come  up  and  talk  in  our  salon  ?  " 

There  was  considerable  discussion  as  to  the  advocate  to 
defend  Delescluze,  who  was  regarded  as  the  most  important 
among  the  accused.     Finally  the  choice  fell  on  Gambetta. 

The  trial  took  place  on  the  13th  of  November.  "  La 
surexcitation  est  extreme  parmi  nos  amis.  Les  plus  calmes 
s*  emportent,"  wrote  Juliette.2 

The  speeches  for  the  defence  were  numerous  and  eloquent. 
But  one  alone  has  survived.  Needless  to  say  it  was  Gam- 
betta's.  With  consummate  skill  he  converted  his  defence 
of  his  client  into  an  attack  upon  the  Empire.  Posing  that 
difficult  question  which  has  of  late  so  often  presented  itself 
in  French  political  life,  Gambetta  asked,  "  Can  there  ever 
be  a  moment,  when  for  the  sake  of  the  public  weal  it  is 
right  to  violate  the  law,  to  overthrow  the  constitution, 
to  treat  as  criminal  those  who  defend  the  right  at  the  risk 
of  their  lives  ?  Louis  Napoleon,  when  in  December  1851 
he  effected  his  coup  d'etat,  considered  that  such  a  moment 
had  arrived.  But  surely,"  exclaimed  this  fearless  re- 
publican, "  this  is  not  the  time  to  justify  such  an  act,  for 
here  we  are  in  the  prsetorium  of  the  judge,  here  the  voice 
of  the  law  alone  should  make  itself  heard." 

These  words,  as  it  may  well  be  imagined,  created  an 

enormous  effect  in  the  court.     There  was  absolute  silence. 

The  audience  seemed  to  hold  its  breath.     The  parts  were 

transposed  :  the  defender  had  become  the  accuser.     Several 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  315.  2  Ibid.,  317. 


HER  PRE-WAR  SALON  115 

times  the  President  endeavoured  to  interrupt.  But  such 
remonstrances  as  "  Really,  Maitre  Gambetta,  you  ought  to 
reserve  that  for  your  peroration,"  as  well  as  the  objections 
of  the  opposing  counsel,  passed  unobserved  amidst  the 
thunder  of  that  tremendous  voice.  Gambetta  merely 
redoubled  his  vehemence.  He  walked  up  and  down,  he 
struck  with  his  hand  on  the  bar  in  front  of  him.  His 
attitude  no  longer  was  one  of  defence,  but  rather  of  re- 
bellion. His  disordered  hair,  his  floating  gown,  his  collar 
thrown  open,  his  crumpled  cap,  which  he  was  constantly 
putting  on  and  taking  off — everything  betrayed  the  intensity 
of  an  avenging  wrath  indifferent  to  everything  save  the 
one  matter  which  kindled  it. 

"  On  the  2nd  of  December,"  cried  Gambetta,  "  they 
tried  to  deceive  Paris  with  the  provinces,  the  provinces  with 
Paris.  Steam  and  telegraphy  were  instruments  in  the 
hands  of  the  new  rSgime.  Throughout  the  departments 
ran  the  announcement,  Paris  submits.  Paris  submits? 
Why,  Paris  was  assassinated,  shot  down,  cannonaded." 

Then  like  a  defiance  resounded  the  concluding  ironical 
appeal  to  the  Empire — 

"Listen;  for  seventeen  years  you  have  been  absolute 
masters,  you  have  held  France  in  your  power.  .  .  .  Yet 
you  have  never  dared  to  place  among  the  national  festivals 
that  2nd  of  December  !  .  .  .  Well,  we  claim  it,  that  anni- 
versary of  the  2nd  of  December.  We  claim  it  for  ourselves. 
We  shall  never  cease  to  celebrate  it.  Every  year  it  will  be 
the  anniversary  of  our  dead,  until  the  day  when  the  country, 
once  more  having  become  the  master,  shall  exact  from  you 
the  great  expiation  in  the  name  of  liberty,  equality  and 
fraternity."  1 

After  a  long  deliberation  the  court  pronounced  sentence, 
and  all  the  accused  were  condemned.  But  few  thought  of 
them.  Gambetta,  though  he  had  failed  to  obtain  his 
client's  acquittal,  was  the  hero  of  the  hour,  for  he  had 
brought  a  more  serious  indictment  against  a  far  greater 
criminal.  Feted  and  congratulated  on  every  hand,  he  was 
conducted  to  the  famous  Restaurant  Magny.  No  false 
modesty  was  his.  He  knew  he  had  dealt  faithfully  with  the 
tyrants,  and  he  was  not  ashamed  to  own  it.  "  Commc  je  leur 
ai  dit  leur  qualre  verites,"  he  exclaimed. 

1  Pierre  de  la  Gorce,  op.  cit.,  418,  and  the  speeches  of  Gambetta,  pub- 
lished by  Joseph  Reinach,  I.  5-17. 


116  MADAME   ADAM 

In  Juliette's  salon  that  night  there  was  wild  enthusiasm. 
Adam  and  his  friends  had  heard  the  speech.  They  re- 
peated passages  of  it.  "  You  must  read  it,"  Adam  said  to 
his  wife.     "  But  it  will  not  be  the  same  as  having  heard  it." 

"  The  13th  of  November,"  writes  Juliette,  "  was  a  fatal 
day  for  the  Empire.1  .  .  .  The  imperial  tree  had  been 
sapped  by  the  little  Cahors  lawyer.  It  was  not  that  Gam- 
betta's  oratory  was  so  very  exceptional.  His  power  lay  in 
making  his  ardent  soul  vibrate  to  the  emotion  of  the  crowd." 

The  Adams  had  found  it  well  worth  their  while  to  post- 
pone their  departure  for  Bruyeres  in  order  to  be  in  Paris  at 
such  a  time. 

Juliette,  on  her  arrival  at  her  villa,  was  overwhelmed  by 
the  transformation  which  Adam  had  worked  in  it.  "  Mon 
Bruyeres,'''  she  writes,  "  est  embelli,  transforms  joliment  a 
Vinterieur,  sans  avoir  perdu  quoi  que  ce  soit  de  sa  gracieuse  et 
modeste  physionomie."  2 

Now  that  in  her  glorified  Bruyeres  Juliette  had  three 
guest-chambers  instead  of  one,  she  could  receive  numerous 
friends  from  Paris.  During  this  winter  Garnier-Pages, 
one  of  her  husband's  old  friends,  a  man  of  "  1848,"  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  Comptoir  d'Escompte,  came  with  his 
family,  and  Juliette's  publisher  Hetzel.  On  the  Golfe 
Juan,  as  at  Paris,  Mme.  Adam  gathered  her  friends  round 
her ;  and  Bruyeres  became  a  veritable  salon,  with  Prosper 
Merimee  for  its  grand  homme.  Of  this  illustrious  writer, 
in  the  evening  of  his  days,  Mme.  Adam  in  her  Souvenirs  3 
paints  a  striking  picture.  She  draws  to  the  life  his  elegant 
figure,  always  well  put  on.  He  affected  grey  trousers, 
white  waistcoats,  large  soft  blue  cravats  tied  in  an  artistic 
bow.  She  describes  his  eyeglasses,  well  posed  on  un  nez 
quon  ne  voyait  qua  lui  tant  la  forme  en  etait  particuliere, 
his  wrinkled,  careworn  forehead,  his  thick  eyebrows,  which 
gave  him  a  cold,  haughty  and  somewhat  severe  air.  There 
was  something  English  about  his  appearance.  His  mother 
was  an  Englishwoman,  and  he  loved  England.  It  was  an 
admirable  country,  he  used  to  say,  where  reforms  proposed 
by  liberals  are  executed  by  conservatives.  This  statement, 
which  like  most  generalisations  is  more  striking  than 
accurate,  was  natural  to  an  observer  of  British  politics  so 
soon  after  the  Reform  Bill  of  1867. 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  318-19.  a  Ibid.,  409-13  et  passim. 

3  Ibid.,  412. 


i^n  r-  v 


HER  PRE-WAR   SALON  117 

Each  winter  Merimee  and  Juliette  Adam  became  better 
friends.  He  paid  her  one  of  the  compliments  she  appre- 
ciated most  when  he  told  Dr.  Maure  that  she  had  made  him 
understand  fraternity.1 

She  enjoyed  his  conversation  immensely.  "  A  talk  with 
Merimee,"  she  writes,  "  is  always  full  of  surprises,2  so 
wide  is  his  knowledge  and  of  a  quality  so  superior."  His 
eclecticism  delighted  her.  He  belonged  to  no  school,  but 
was  ready  to  appreciate  anything  that  appealed  to  him, 
modern  or  ancient,  idealist  or  realist,  romantic  or  classical. 
His  bete  noir  was  exaggeration.  He  was  artistic  to  the 
finger-tips.  He  detested  the  photographic  method  of 
treating  life  and  nature.  "  Every  artist  at  the  beginning 
of  his  life,"  he  would  say,  "  must,  I  admit,  be  carried  away 
by  passion,  by  rapture,  but  before  long  he  must  deny  himself 
any  ecstasy  which  might  cloud  his  imagination  and  dim 
his  vision  of  reality ;  he  must  retain  of  his  passion  only  so 
much  as  is  necessary  for  its  description." 

Merimee,  like  Juliette's  friend  Flaubert,  was  a  heroic 
worker.  He  would  not  hesitate  to  rewrite  a  page  ten 
times.  A  term  erased  seemed  to  him  but  "a  jumping-off 
place  from  which  to  reach  le  mot  juste."  Mme.  Adam  highly 
prized  the  lessons  he  gave  her  on  style. 

In  general  conversation  he  was  not  at  his  best.  However 
interesting  the  subject  might  be,  he  was  ill  at  ease  if  the 
speaker  did  not  appeal  to  him.  He  would  assume  a  frigid 
manner.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  speaker  pleased  him, 
he  would  hasten  to  pour  forth  all  the  treasures  of  his 
accumulated  reflections. 

The  events  of  the  summer  of  1868,  and  the  troubles  of 
UAvenir  National,  an  opposition  newspaper  founded  in 
1865,  edited  by  Peyrat,  and  in  which  Adam  had  a  large 
financial  interest,  had  prevented  Juliette  and  her  husband 
from  taking  any  honeymoon  immediately  after  their  mar- 
riage. Now,  in  the  spring  of  1869,  accompanied  by  Alice, 
they  took  their  postponed  wedding-tour  to  Italy.  They 
visited  Florence,  then  the  capital  of  the  Italian  kingdom, 
Milan,  Turin  and  Genoa.  Furnished  with  useful  intro- 
ductions by  Thiers  and  others  friends,  they  met  many 
interesting  people,  Cairoli,  the  Marquis  Alfieri,  Nino  Bixio, 
the  Garibaldian  soldier,  whose  brother  Alessandro  had 
been  so  intimate  a  friend  of  Adam.  At  Florence  they 
1  Souvenirs,  III.  412.  a  Ibid.,  410. 


118  MADAME   ADAM 

rejoiced  to  meet  again  the  Italian  exiles  whom  they  had 
known  in  Paris.  Mme.  Adam,  while  admiring  the  intense 
patriotism  of  the  Italians,  was  grieved  to  perceive  how 
Napoleon's  papal  policy  had  alienated  them  from  France. 
At  the  meetings  of  the  Italian  Chamber,  the  opposition's 
violent  attacks  on  France  cut  her  to  the  heart. 

"  Cest  pour  Adam  et  moi  line  grande  tristesse,"  she  writes. 
"  Quoi !  tout  le  sang  verse,  nos  sacrifices,  notre  amitie,  noire 
denouement,  notre  enthousiasme,  a  nous,  republicains,  qui  nous 
a  fait  accepter  un  armistice  dans  notre  lutte  contre  V Empire, 
nont  servi  qua  nous  faire  une  ennemi  violente  de  V  Italic"  1 

Juliette  was  glad  to  see  her  last  novel,  U Education  de 
Laure,  displayed  in  the  book-shops  of  Milan.  Driving  home, 
along  the  Corniche  Road,  in  company  with  Nino  Bixio,  they 
had  a  memorable  journey,  to  which  we  shall  refer  later. 

Arriving  in  Paris  in  April,  they  found  the  capital  in  the 
throes  of  preparing  for  the  general  election,  fixed  for  the 
23rd  and  24th  of  May — the  third  election  held  since  the 
establishment  of  the  Empire,  the  two  previous  had  been 
in  1857  and  1863.  But  this,  remarks  Mme.  Adam,  was  the 
first  election  which  had  been  held  since  the  granting  of  liberty 
of  public  meetings  and  of  the  Press,  two  reforms  which  had 
resulted  from  Ollivier's  establishment  of  what  is  known  as 
l'Empire  Liberale. 

Juliette  in  her  salon  on  the  Boulevard  Poissonniere  found 
herself  quite  as  much  in  the  movement  as  she  would  have 
been  in  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  From  her  windows  she  saw, 
or  imagined  she  saw,  all  manner  of  wonderful  happenings  : 
strange  meetings  and  consultations  after  midnight  between 
policemen  and  les  blouses  blanches,  those  socialists,  the 
mistrusted  tail  of  the  radical  party,  whom  Gambetta,  in 
his  famous  Belleville  speech,  was  accused  of  humouring. 
His  more  moderate  friends  thought  he  had  promised  too 
much  :  tariff  and  tax  reform,  election  of  all  Government 
functionaries,  suppression  of  standing  armies.  "  You  must 
cut  off  this  tail  of  yours,"  remonstrated  his  anti-socialist 
supporters.  "  Cut  off  my  tail,"  said  Gambetta  gaily,  "  not 
as  long  as  I  live.  I  will  tie  a  white  sash  round  it  and  lead 
it  into  society."  2 

Gambetta,  at  the  head  of  les  Jeunes  was  opposing  at 
Belleville  Hippolyte  Carnot,  that  vieille  barbe  as  the  heroes 
of  1848   were   called.     Baucel,   another   of  les  Jeunes  in 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  345.  2  Pierre  de  la  Gorce,  op.  cit.,  V.  483. 


HER   PRE-WAR   SALON  119 

another  Paris  constituency,  was  successfully  opposing 
Ollivier  himself;  and  the  founder  of  l'Empire  Libc'rale  was 
driven  to  a  provincial  constituency  in  the  Department  of 
Var.  So  unpopular  was  the  minister  in  the  capital  that 
his  public  meeting  at  Le  Chatclet  became  a  riot,  during 
which  the  famous  beer-house  Dreher  was  sacked  before  the 
police  could  effectually  intervene. 

The  election  cries  of  the  opposition  were  "  Away  with 
personal  government,"  "  Away  with  a  standing  army  and 
substitute  a  national  militia."  With  the  latter  neither 
Juliette  nor  her  husband  were  in  agreement.  Jules  Simon 
in  their  salon  represented  this  party.  And  when  Adam 
argued  against  him,  upholding  a  standing  army,  maintain- 
ing that  without  it  a  nation  is  lost,  Nefftzer  intervened 
saying,  "  You  are  right  both  of  you.  We  must  have  a 
standing  army  and  a  national  militia  to  defend  the  country 
against  the  German  invasion  which  is  approaching."  x 

Though  many  of  her  friends  were  standing  as  candidates, 
Madame  Adam's  salon  continued  to  be  well  frequented  all 
through  the  election.  The  guests,  however,  came  later  and 
went  away  earlier.  Occasionally  some  one  would  disappoint 
her.  Jules  Ferry,  for  instance,  in  one  of  the  most  adroit 
of  notes  excused  himself  at  the  last  moment. 

"  Madame"  he  wrote,2  "  je  n  appartiens  plus  ni  a  mes 
amis,  ni  a  moi-meme,  ni  aux  choses  gracieuses  de  la  vie.  .  .  . 
Or  void  qu'une  reunion  d'electeurs  apparait  a  Vhorizon,  un 
peu  plus  farouche  que  voire  salon.  Velecteur  est  un  maitre, 
vous  le  savez,  et  nous  ne  sommes  pas  sur  un  lit  de  roses; 
vous  m  excuserez  done  et  vous  me  permettrez  si  ce  mercredi 
soir  m'est  enlevS,  de  vous  porter  mes  excuses  un  matin.'" 

At  the  request  of  their  friends  the  Adams,  as  will  be 
seen,  had  changed  their  day  from  Friday  to  Wednesday. 
Throughout  the  election  Juliette  had  been  full  of  hope. 
And  the  result  did  not  disappoint  her.  For,  although 
the  Government  maintained  a  majority  in  the  House,  the 
opposition  had  won  a  striking  moral  victory.  The  forces 
of  the  opposition  now  led  by  Gambetta  in  the  Chamber, 
had  shown  their  growing  power.  Many  of  its  candidates, 
Rochefort,  for  example,  though  defeated,  had  obtained  a 
large  number  of  votes.  The  Empire  was  visibly  totter- 
ing. Napoleon,  ill  and  irresolute,  was  driven  to  grant  the 
reformers  concession  after  concession. 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  358.  2  Ibid.,  361. 


CHAPTER   IX 

HER   FRIENDSHIP    WITH    GEORGE    SAND 

1858—1870 
"  Ma  grande  amie  maternelle  a  He  mon  guide." — Mme.  Adam,  Souvenirs. 

To  have  been  intimately  associated  with  George  Sand 
during  the  last  fifteen  years  of  that  distinguished  woman's 
life,  Mme.  Adam  regards  as  one  of  her  greatest  privileges. 

Each  of  Mme.  Adam's  seven  volumes  of  Souvenirs  has 
its  hero  and  heroine  :  her  grandmother,  Mme.  Seron, 
dominates  the  first,  Mme.  d'Agoult  the  second,  Gambetta 
the  four  last.  George  Sand,  while  intervening  in  several 
volumes,  figures  most  prominently  in  the  third,  Mes 
Sentiments  et  Nos  I  dees  avant  1870.  Here  we  find  a  striking 
portrait  of  that  celebrated  novelist  whom  her  English 
critic,  W.  H.  Myers,  considers  "  the  most  noteworthy 
woman,  with  perhaps  one  exception,  who  has  appeared 
since  Sappho."  x  Mme.  Adam  knew  George  Sand  in  the 
evening  of  her  days,  when  she  had  lived  down  her  enemies, 
partisanships,  scandals,  loves.  They  had  passed  away  and 
left  her  "  in  grand  old  age  sitting  beneath  the  roof  that 
sheltered  her  earliest  years,  and  writing  for  her  grandchildren 
stories  in  which  her  own  childhood  lives  anew." 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Juliette  Adam  and  George  Sand 
should  have  been  attracted  to  one  another;  for  they  had 
many  natural  affinities.  They  were  both  passionately 
romantic  and  idealist.  "  Je  suis  restee  troubadour,"  writes 
Mme.  Sand  in  January  1867,2  "  cest  a  dire  croyant  a  V amour, 
a  V art,  a  V ideal."  They  were  both  incurable  optimists,  ardent 
adorers  of  nature,  lovers  of  humble  folk,  and  of  peasants 
especially ;  delighting  in  simple  things,  in  the  joys  of  friend- 
ship, in  the  pleasures  of  family  life,  though  both  had  known 

1  W.  H.  Myers,  Modern  Essays  (1883). 
8  George  Sand,  Correspondance,  V.  164. 
120 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH   GEORGE   SAND     121 

marital  miseries.  Their  upbringing  had  not  been  unlike, 
penetrated  in  each  case  with  a  strong  strain  of  paganism. 
Neither  was  a  rationalist,  for  surging  up  from  the  subcon- 
sciousness of  them  both  was  a  keen  sense  of  the  unseen  and 
a  lively  curiosity  in  the  occult. 

Their  creeds  differed  :  George  Sand  was  a  deist,  Juliette 
in  those  days  a  pantheist.  But  Mme.  Sand  was  not  mis- 
taken when  she  prophesied  that  one  day  her  young  friend's 
faith  would  approximate  more  nearly  to  her  own.  "  Essayez 
done  de  vous  convertir  a  mon  Dieu  unique,"  she  said.  II 
y'a  en  voire  dme  un  grand  vide  de  spiritualite  dont  vous  ne 
vous  apercevez  pas  a  cette  heure,  parceque  vous  avez  la  vie 
la  plus  pleine  que  se  puisse  imaginer,  mais  un  beau  jour 
vous  sentirez  Vinsufficence  que  vous  apporte  voire  croyance  en 
Vincroyance"  x 

It  was  in  1858,  on  the  publication  of  her  first  book,  I  dees 
Anti-Proudhoniennes,  written  as  we  have  seen  partly  in 
defence  of  George  Sand,  that  Juliette  first  came  into  personal 
relationship  with  the  writer  whom  she  had  long  admired. 
"  George  Sand  me  remercia  par  une  fort  belle  lettre  pleine  de 
gratitude,''''  she  writes.2  Later  the  young  authoress  received 
a  visit  from  one  of  Mme.  Sand's  friends,  a  certain  Captain 
d'Arpentigny,  who  explained  to  her  that,  as  she  was  the 
friend  of  the  Comtesse  d'Agoult,  with  whom  Mme.  Sand 
had  quarrelled,3  the  latter  deemed  it  prudent  that  she  and 
her  young  champion  should  not  meet.  If  some  day  Juliette 
should  break  off  her  relations  with  Mme.  d'Agoult,  then 
she  might  come  to  see  George  Sand. 

Such  a  condition  was  neither  petty  nor  vindictive,  though 
such  at  first  it  might  seem.  Considering  the  temperaments 
of  these  two  distinguished  women — one  endowed  with  the 
passionate  vehemence  and  frankness  of  the  Celt,  the  other 
not  lacking  in  a  certain  Teutonic  vindictiveness —  for  Juliette 
to  have  been  a  loyal  friend  to  them  both  at  the  same  time 
would  have  been  impossible.4 

There  was  no  reason,  however,  why  Juliette  and  George 
Sand  should  not  correspond.  Mme.  Sand  never  failed  to 
take   an   interest   in   her   correspondent's    literary  career. 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  282-3.  2  Ibid.,  II.  83. 

3  That  Liszt  was  the  cause  of  their  quarrel  was  well  known.  Mme.  Sand 
had  written  of  it  in  her  novel  Horace,  Mme.  d'Agoult  in  Nilida. 

4  For  the  bitterness  of  Mme.  d'Agoult's  resentment,  see  Souvenirs,  II. 
201-4. 


122  MADAME   ADAM 

She  read  all  her  books  and  gave  the  young  author  the 
invaluable  benefit  of  her  criticism.  Though  her  book  Mon 
Village  was  dedicated  to  Mme.  d'Agoult,  it  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  written  at  the  suggestion  of  George  Sand. 

For  nine  years  Juliette  and  her  unknown  friend,  her 
amie  eloignee,  as  Mme.  Sand  called  herself,  continued  to 
correspond.  And  it  was  not  until  Juliette's  final  breach 
with  Mme.  d'Agoult,  in  1867,  that  the  former  considered 
herself  at  liberty  to  see  in  the  flesh  her  whose  spirit  and 
whose  writings  she  had  admired  so  long. 

Mme.  Adam's  graphic  description  of  the  memorable 
meeting  in  the  third  volume  of  her  Souvenirs  x  has  become 
almost  a  classic. 

With  her  whole  being  throbbing  with  emotion,  Juliette 
went  by  appointment  to  Mme.  Sand's  flat,  No.  97,  Rue  des 
Feuillantines.  In  a  large  armchair,  which  made  her  appear 
quite  a  little  woman,  Mme.  Sand  sat  with  both  arms  on  a 
table  in  front  of  her,  rolling  a  cigarette. 

"I  approached,"  writes  Juliette;  "she  did  not  rise, 
but  she  pointed  to  a  seat,  which  I  was  to  take,  quite  near 
the  table.  Her  large  kind  eyes  enveloped,  attracted  me. 
My  pulse  beat  violently. 

"  I  made  a  great  effort  to  greet  her  with  a  word.  I  found 
nothing  to  say.     My  heart  came  into  my  mouth. 

"  She  lit  her  cigarette  and  began  to  smoke.  She  also 
seemed  searching  for  a  word  to  address  to  me ;  but  she  no 
more  than  I  could  find  anything  to  say. 

"  Later  I  knew  how  reserved  she  felt  in  the  presence  of 
any  one  whom  she  saw  for  the  first  time. 

"  Then,  realising  that  I  must  appear  idiotic,  my  feelings 
overcame  me,  and  I  burst  into  tears. 

"  George  Sand  threw  away  her  cigarette  and  held  out  her 
arms  to  me.  I  threw  myself  into  them,  possessed  by  that 
filial  tenderness  which  I  had  longed  to  experience,  and 
which  has  remained  with  me  to  this  hour." 

Naturally  they  could  not  avoid  talking  of  that  disagree- 
ment with  Mme.  d'Agoult  which  had  rendered  the  meeting 
possible. 

jThen  they  discussed  a  theme  constantly  recurring  in  the 
conversation  of  serious  persons  in  that  day :  the  frivolity 
and  corruption  of  Parisian  society  under  the  Empire,  and 
the  reign  of  opportunism. 

1  pp.  145-7. 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH   GEORGE   SAND     123 

They  rejoiced  at  the  boldness  of  the  manager  of  the 
Theatre  i'rancais,  who  had  dared  to  represent  a  play  by 
Victor  Hugo,  then  a  political  exile,  and  they  delighted  to 
think  of  the  consolation  it  must  bring  to  the  author  in  his 
banishment. 

"  I  left  Mme.  Sand,"  writes  Juliette,  "  after  two  hours 
of  confidences,  confirmed  in  my  adoration  of  her  and  in  our 
friendship. 

"  Would  that  I  could  tell  and  tell  again  all  her  delicacy 
of  feeling,  her  nobility  of  heart,  her  moral  elevation,  her 
wide  comprehension  of  life,  her  serenity  learnt  in  so  hard  a 
school,  won  at  the  price  of  such  cruel  experiences." 

That  Juliette  on  her  part  had  favourably  impressed  her 
new  acquaintance  may  be  seen  by  the  terms  in  which 
Mme.  Sand  refers  to  her  in  her  correspondence.  Writing 
to  Flaubert  in  September  1867,  she  calls  Juliette  une 
charmante  jeune  femme  de  lettres,1  and  again  to  the  same 
correspondent  she  exclaims  later,  Mme.  Juliette  Lamber 
est  vraiment  charmante.  George  Sand  took  a  deep  interest 
in  all  the  members  of  her  young  friend's  family.  At  her 
invitation  Juliette's  betrothed,  Edmond  Adam,  went  to 
see  her.  They  talked  of  1848.  Speaking  of  Juliette,  Mme. 
Sand  said  to  Adam,  "  I  have  waited  long  for  cette  fille 
adoptive  " ;  of  Adam  to  his  bride,  "  He  has  a  loyal  hand  : 2 
you  must  be  proud  to  give  him  yours."  3  Henceforth 
nothing  would  satisfy  Juliette  and  her  affianced  but  that 
Mme.  Sand  should  visit  them  on  the  Golfe  Juan.  Juliette 
described  her  Bruyeres  as  modest  but  gay,  Adam's  villa, 
Le  Grand  Pin,  as  fine  and  equipped  with  every  possible 
comfort  and  convenience.     George  decided  for  Bruyeres. 

"  Et  mevoila"  writes  Juliette,  "  aussi  joyeuse  qu  Edmond 
Adam  va  devenir  jaloux." 4  Mme.  Sand,  who  adored 
children  and  was  never  tired  of  talking  of  her  own  little 
granddaughter  Aurora,  insisted  on  seeing  Alice.  With 
Juliette's  daughter  it  was  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight.  For 
Mme.  Sand,  who  had  a  nickname  for  every  one  she  loved, 
Alice  was  henceforth  Topaz,  because  of  the  dark  olive 
complexion  she  had  inherited  from  her  Sicilian  father, 
Lamessine. 

1  Correspondance,  V.  220. 

2  The  great  George,  apparently  like  Juliette  herself,  was  a  believer  in 
palmistry.     See  Souvenirs,  II.  97. 

3  Souvenirs,  III.  161,  239.  *  Ibid. 


124  MADAME   ADAM 

Henceforth  Juliette  lived  in  the  hope  of  that  promised 
winter  visit  to  Bruyeres.  But  before  her  southern  flight 
in  November,  she  was  to  see  a  great  deal  of  her  friend  in 
Paris.  In  September  they  went  together  to  Rouen  and 
Jumieges.1  They  dined  together  in  town.  Once  at  Mme. 
Sand's  favourite  restaurant,  the  famous  Magny's,  on  the 
left  bank,2  Juliette  met  for  the  first  time  an  illustrious 
quartette  of  whom  she  was  to  see  much  later  :  Edmond 
and  Jules  de  Goncourt,  Gustave  Flaubert  and  Dumas 
fils.  The  friendship  between  Juliette  and  Flaubert,  which 
dates  from  that  evening,  endured  until  the  novelist's 
death.  With  Flaubert's  family  Mme.  Adam  has  continued 
intimate,  and  the  opening  weeks  of  this  year  (1917)  she 
spent  with  Flaubert's  niece  at  her  country  house  in  the 
department  of  Var.  The  talk,  chez  Magny,  that  evening  3 
was  lively  and  frank,  to  say  the  least  of  it.  The  youth,  the 
beauty,  the  charm  of  Mme.  Sand's  new  friend,  provoked 
Dumas  to  scoff  at  the  idea  of  her  becoming  a  writer  and  a 
bas  bleu.  He,  like  Michel  Levy  of  old,4  believed,  as  he 
put  it,  that  she  had  something  better  to  do.  "  II  faut 
aimer,  aimer,  aimer,"  he  cried.  And  Flaubert  and  the  de 
Goncourts  repeated,  "  II  faut  aimer.''''  "  To  learn  that, 
gentlemen,  I  have  not  waited  for  your  words  of  wisdom," 
replied  Juliette.  "  I  love  to  love  whom  I  love,  and  he, 
whom  I  love,  loves  to  see  me  write." 

"  The  fool,"  cried  Dumas. 

"  What  an  extraordinary  idea,"  exclaimed  Mme.  Sand, 
"  to  attempt  to  prove  in  my  presence  that  a  woman  who  is 
a  writer  cannot  love." 

"  There  is  truth  in  it  all  the  same,"  said  Edmond  de 
Goncourt. 

"  Never,"  protested  George  Sand.  "  The  reproach 
which  may  be  brought  against  women  writers  is  precisely 
that  they  have  loved  too  much.  Et  la  preuve,  dedans  moi- 
meme,  je  la  treuve,"  she  added,  relapsing  into  patois. 

"  You,"  cried  Dumas,  "  why  you  have  never  loved 
anything  but  the  prefigurings  of  the  heroes  of  your  future 

1  See  George  Sand's  letter  to  Flaubert,  Correspondence,  V.  220. 

2  It  was  at  this  restaurant  that  Sainte-Beuve  gave  that  Good  Friday 
dinner  which  clerical  circles  regarded  as  a  shocking  blasphemy. 

3  Souvenirs,  III.  165-8, 
*  See  ante,  55. 


FRIENDSHIP   WITH   GEORGE   SAND     125 

novels,  something  like  the  marionettes,1  whom  you  have 
rigged  out  to  repeat  your  play.  Can  that  be  called  loving  ?" 
Come,"  said  Flaubert.  "  Now,  we  four  are  writers 
of  some  standing.     Can  we  be  called  great  lovers?  " 

"  I  don't  know  and  I  don't  care,"  replied  Mme.  Sand. 
"  But,  to  confine  oneself  to  recent  examples,  it  is  absurd 
to  maintain  that  Mme.  de  Stael,  Mme.  d'Agoult,  Mme.  de 
Girardin  and  I  have  not  been  passionate  lovers.  Indeed, 
on  the  contrary,  what  remains  to  be  proved  is  the  possi- 
bility of  a  pretty  woman  writer,  who  is  really  gifted,  continu- 
ing a  simple,  loving,  faithful  wife  like  any  other  woman." 

"  Yes,  that  is  an  interesting  problem,"  said  Jules  de 
Goncourt. 

That  evening  Mme.  Sand  talked  more  than  usual. 
Generally  she  preferred  to  listen,  delighting  to  emphasise 
some  witty  remark,  which  she  relished  more  than  any  one 
by  a  frank  outburst  of  laughter  or  a  brief  exclamation. 

In  conversation  Mme.  Sand  was  best  in  tete-a-tete.  Some 
of  the  most  memorable  of  her  confidential  talks  with  her 
friend,  Mme.  Adam  has  reproduced  in  her  Souvenirs. 

One  evening  in  Paris,  when  they  were  to  have  gone  to 
the  Odeon  together,  the  play  having  been  suddenly  changed 
through  an  actor's  illness,  "  Let  us  stay  at  home  and 
talk,  dear  Juliette,"  said  George. 

That  conversation  marked  the  beginning  of  George 
Sand's  ascendancy  over  her  young  friend's  mind.  "  A 
partir  de  cette  heure,"  writes  Juliette,  "  ma  grande  amie 
maternelle  a  Hi  mon  guide.2 

At  the  end  of  a  long  silence,  during  which  she  had  been 
smoking  cigarettes,  throwing  them  into  a  bowl  of  water 
after  a  few  whin's,  George  said,  as  if  resuming  the  thoughts 
that  had  been  occupying  her — 

"  I  want  my  life  to  be  useful  to  another,  to  the  daughter 
whom  I  choose  to  adopt,  to  you,  my  child.  As  we  learn  to 
know  one  another  better,  as  we  talk  more  and  more  to  one 
another,  I  will  tell  you  by  what  paths,  always  roughest 
when  I  most  sought  to  find  them  smooth,  I  have  climbed 
the  hill  of  existence." 

Through  all  that  she  has  written  of  George  Sand,  we  find 
Juliette  ever  attempting  to  excuse,  or  at  least  to  account 

1  Dumas  was  thinking  of  George  Sand's  famous  marionette  theatre  at 
Nohant.     See  post,  129. 
*  Souvenirs,  III.  172. 


126  MADAME   ADAM 

for,  the  irregularities,  the  ebullience,  the  wild  passions  of 
her  friend's  exuberant  and  turbulent  youth.  She  attri- 
butes them  to  the  extravagance  and  effervescence  of 
that  romantic  movement,  in  the  hey-day  of  which  Mme. 
Sand  lived  the  first  half  of  her  life.  For  this  view  of 
her  friend's  career  Juliette  had  the  authority  of  George 
herself. 

"  In  my  young  days,"  said  Mme.  Sand  on  this  memorable 
evening,  "  I  moved  in  a  purely  artificial  world,  in  which 
we  were  all  resolved  to  feel,  to  experience,  to  love,  to  think, 
differently  from  the  vulgar  herd.  Determined  to  avoid 
the  bank,  to  swim  out  into  the  open,  we  were  constantly 
losing  our  foothold  and  floundering  in  unfathomable 
depths.  Remote  from  the  crowd,  remote  from  the  shore, 
always  more  and  more  remote.  How  many  of  us  have  not 
perished  body  and  soul  ! 

"  And  those  who  would  not  be  drowned,  who  struggled, 
who  were  thrown  back  on  to  the  bank,  they  recovered  their 
footing,  they  became  like  other  people,  through  contact 
with  the  earth,  and  especially  with  the  common  sense  of 
humble  folk.  How  often  have  I  not  become  myself  again 
in  the  midst  of  peasants !  How  often  has  not  Nohant 
cured  me  of  and  saved  me  from  Paris  !  " 

For  George  Sand,  as  for  Joan  of  Arc  four  centuries  ago, 
as  for  Anatole  France  to-day,  the  most  adorable,  the  most 
salutary,  the  most  indispensable  of  all  human  sentiments  is 
pity.  Looking  back  from  the  vantage  point  of  old  age  on 
the  mad,  passionate  adventures  of  her  youth,  Mme.  Sand 
saw  herself  ever  swayed  from  the  bottom  of  her  heart  by 
une  grand  pitie.  It  was  often  that  pity  which  caused  her 
to  quarrel  with  her  lovers.  She  loved  them  as  a  mother 
loves  her  child.  But  they  demanded  from  her  the  love 
of  a  mistress. 

"  Quand  je  iri  examine"  she  said  to  Juliette,  "  je  vois  que 
les  deux  seules  passions  de  ma  vie  ont  ete  la  maternite  et 
VamitiS."  * 

After  numerous  delays  and  postponements  Mme.  Sand, 
accompanied  by  her  son  Maurice  and  her  friend  Planet, 
at  length,  in  February  1868,  arrived  at  Bruyeres.  The 
date  of  the  visit  had  been  so  frequently  changed  that 
Juliette  and  Alice  had  begun  to  fear  that  it  might  never 
take  place  at  all.  "  Cold  outside,  comfort  within,  and 
1  Souvenirs,  III.  170. 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH   GEORGE   SAND     127 

especially  the  happiness  of  living  surrounded  by  one's 
family,"  writes  Mme.  Sand  to  a  friend  in  Paris,1  "  have 
delayed  my  journey."  But  on  the  22nd  of  February  she 
was  able  to  write  to  a  friend  at  Toulon  from  "  Golfe  Juan, 
Villa  Bruyeres."  "  We  are  very  comfortably  installed, 
very  much  spoilt,  very  energetic,  very  happy.  The  day 
after  to-morow  we  are  going  to  Nice,  Monaco  and  Mentone. 
We  shall  be  away  three  or  four  days.  Consequently  you 
must  try  not  to  let  your  business  bring  you  here  before  the 
end  of  the  week.  Friday,  for  example,  we  are  always  at 
home.  For  on  that  day  Mme.  Lamber  receives.  But  if 
you  come  on  another  day  you  must  let  us  know ;  for  we 
generally  spend  the  whole  day  out  of  doors,  and  sometimes 
go  a  considerable  distance."  2 

In  picnics,  in  visits  to  Monte  Carlo  and  other  scenes  of 
gaiety,  in  sailing  in  La  Petite  Fadette,  the  yacht  which  had 
been  Edmond  Adam's  New  Year's  gift  to  his  affianced  bride, 
the  time  passed  very  pleasantly.  George  Sand  was  a 
fervent  geologist  and  botanist.  "  Give  me  a  piece  of 
stone,"  she  would  say,  "  and  I  will  tell  you  the  kind  of 
flora  it  will  produce."  By  such  means  and  without 
visiting  the  country  she  is  said  to  have  given  a  background 
to  some  of  her  novels.  On  one  of  their  picnics  Mme.  Sand 
suggested  that  they  should  found  a  new  Abbey  of  Thelema, 
in  which  Juliette  was  to  be  housekeeper  and  caterer.  And 
she  could  not  have  made  a  better  choice,  as  will  testify 
all  who  have  tasted  of  Mme.  Adam's  hospitality. 

The  fortnight  which  Mme.  Sand  passed  on  the  Golfe 
Juan  was  for  Juliette  one  of  the  happiest  in  that  happy 
year,  1868,  the  year  of  her  marriage  with  Edmond  Adam. 
Bruyeres  was  a  home  of  delight  to  those  who  enjoyed  its 
charming  hospitality  and  had  the  good  fortune  to  stay 
there.  La  Villa  du  Bon  Repos  some  of  them  christened  it, 
and  later  it  was  known  as  "  the  Adam's  earthly  Paradise." 
During  the  February  of  1868  it  was  the  gayest  house  on  the 
Riviera. 

Mme.  Sand  was  a  delightful  person  to  entertain,  so 
simple,  so  contented,  so  entirely  occupied  with  other 
people,  never  permitting  her  hosts  to  perceive  in  her  the 
slightest  suggestion  of  care,  anxiety,  or  fatigue.  Perfectly 
regular  and  orderly  in  her  manner  of  life,  every  day  she  made 
her  first  appearance  at  the  twelve-o'clock  lunch,  and  from 
1  George  Sand,  Correspondence,  V.  243.  2  Ibid.,  245. 


128  MADAME   ADAM 

that  hour  until  ten  her  friends  had  her  to  themselves.  At  ten 
in  the  evening  she  bade  them  good-night  and  retired  to  her 
room  to  work,  frequently  until  the  small  hours  of  the 
morning.  Juliette,  whose  room  was  beneath  Mme.  Sand's 
and  who  also  went  to  bed  late,  used  to  hear  her  moving 
about.  Her  cigarettes  and  a  glass  of  water  were  all  she 
required  for  her  long  vigils. 

Maurice  Sand,  her  son,  himself  a  gifted  writer,  one  of  the 
wittiest  and  gayest  of  companions,  the  inventor  and 
manager  of  the  celebrated  marionette  theatre  at  Nohant, 
entertained  the  company  with  his  jokes — no  one  could  long 
be  serious  in  his  presence. 

Mme.  Sand's  friend  Planet  had  been  brought  up  to  laugh 
at  Nohant  (eleve  a  rire),  for  Mme.  Sand  believed  in  mirth  as 
the  most  effectual  of  sanitives.  La  gaiete  est  la  meilleure 
hygiene  de  V  esprit.  "  Consequently,"  writes  Juliette,  "  I 
assure  you  we  are  not  sad."  x 

George  Sand  used  to  say  that  she  was  never  sure  of  her 
friends  until  she  had  stayed  with  them  and  lived  some  days 
of  their  life.  Her  visit  to  Bruyeres  drew  more  closely 
the  cords  of  her  intimacy  with  Juliette,  and  sealed  their 
friendship. 

On  their  return  to  Paris,  and  after  their  marriage,  which 
took  place  in  the  spring,  the  Adams  were  constantly  being 
urged  by  Mme.  Sand  to  visit  her  at  Nohant.  "  Chers 
enfants"  wrote  George,  "  quand  vous  verra  fon  ?  On  vous 
attend  maintenant  tout  Vete,  sans  aucun  projet  que  le  bonheur 
de  vous  embrasser  tous  trois  "  2  (Edmond  Adam,  Juliette  and 
Alice).  Adam  had  a  horror  of  country  visits.  But  in  this 
case  he  was  willing  to  set  aside  his  prejudice,  and  to  accept 
the  great  George's  invitation.  The  Adams  only  waited 
until  Juliette's  father,  Dr.  Lambert,  had  recovered  from 
an  operation  for  stone.  Finally,  on  the  4th  of  July,  in 
time  for  their  hostess's  sixty-fifth  birthday,  jour  de  bouquets 
et  d'embrassades,  they  arrived  at  Mme.  Sand's  picturesque 
home  at  Nohant,  in  the  heart  of  that  beloved  Berry,  which 
readers  of  her  novels  know  so  well. 

The  birthday  of  the  mistress  of  Nohant  was  a  fete  for 
the  neighbourhood.  Maurice  had  spent  the  previous  night 
decorating  the  hall  and  reception-rooms  with  garlands 
woven  by  the  peasants.     In  the  art  of  decoration,   the 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  205. 

2  Ibid.,  259,  and  George  Sand's  Correspondance,  V.  258-9. 


FRIENDSHIP  WITH   GEORGE  SAND     129 

creator  of  the  Marionette  Theatre  was  a  past  master ;  and 
the  whole  house  appeared  a  bower  of  flowers  and  verdure.1 

The  firing  of  a  gun  announced  the  luncheon  hour. 
Marshalled  by  Maurice,  the  entire  household,  guests,  servants 
and  even  the  tiny  granddaughter  Aurora,  holding  Alice's 
hand,  assembled  in  grande  toilette.  Alice  and  her  mother 
had  been  early  out  in  the  fields  gathering  wild  flowers  for 
the  birthday  nosegays,  which  they  were  to  present  to 
their  hostess.  Then  she  appeared.  The  servants  cried : 
"  Vive  la  bonne  dame."  Maurice  read  an  address  which 
he  had  prepared  for  the  occasion.  "  Ce  que  tu  es  adorable- 
ment  stupide,"  cried  his  mother,  embracing  him.  Then  all 
the  guests  in  turn  expressed  their  good  wishes.  Luncheon 
passed  gaily,  the  afternoon  was  spent  out  of  doors.  But 
the  great  event  of  the  day  was  the  evening  performance  in 
the  marionette  theatre. 

To  the  description  of  this  highly  ingenious,  perfectly 
artistic  and  most  entrancing  of  entertainments  Mme.  Adam 
devotes  six  pages  of  her  Souvenirs.  The  spectators  were 
encouraged  to  express  their  opinions  audibly  as  the  play 
went  on.  Each  had  his  favourite  actor  or  actress.  Mme. 
Adam,  having  declared  her  preference  for  a  certain  Coq- 
en-Bois,  he  from  the  stage  invited  her  to  dine  with  him  in  a 
cabinet  particulier  at  the  Cafe  Brebant.  "  Ah  !  no,  I  pro- 
test !  "  cried  Adam;  and  led  by  the  queen  of  the  festival, 
the  whole  audience  was  convulsed  with  laughter. 

In  theory,  and  in  practice  during  her  early  days,  always  a 
rebel  against  order  and  discipline,  in  her  home  George  Sand 
had  ever  been  the  personification  of  orderliness.  Perfect 
tidiness  reigned  in  her  simply  furnished  study.  In  her 
desk  and  her  large  cupboards,  every  drawer  and  shelf  was 
furnished  with  a  label  indicating  the  contents.  Equally 
precise  was  the  arrangement  of  her  bedroom,  opening  out  of 
the  study,  with  its  fine  old  furniture  and  its  hangings  of 
blue — the  colour  of  the  Golfe  Juan,  as  she  said  to  Juliette. 
In  her  gardens,  where  she  had  acclimatised  an  immense 
variety  of  plants,  collected  during  her  travels,  Mme.  Sand 
took  great  delight.  But  no  one  was  allowed  to  cut  the 
flowers.  Those  used  for  house  decoration  were  all  gathered 
in  the  woods  and  fields. 

Serious  conversation,  profound  discussions,  Mme.  Sand 
reserved  for  her  tete-d-tetes.     The  general  talk  at  Nohant 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  268. 
E 


130  MADAME   ADAM 

was  of  the  mirth -provoking  order,  that  intelligent  nonsense 
which  clears  the  brain  and  sharpens  the  wits.  If  any  one 
was  inclined  to  be  too  serious,  he  was  immediately  prodded 
into  liveliness  by  one  of  those  practical  jokes  in  which  the 
mistress  of  Nohant  revelled.  The  unhappy  Edmond  Adam 
had  all  his  worst  prejudices  against  country-house  parties 
confirmed  when  he  was  roused  from  his  slumbers  by  the 
crowing  of  a  cock,  which  Maurice  had  hidden  in  the  wood- 
chest  of  his  bedroom.  The  wretched  victim's  vociferations, 
mingling  with  the  voice  of  chanticleer,  as  in  night  attire 
this  much-tried  guest  searched  for  his  tormentor,  afforded 
intense  amusement  to  the  household  assembled  in  the 
passage,  as  well  as  to  Juliette,  who,  being  in  the  secret,  was 
cowering  beneath  the  sheets,  trying  to  suppress  her  laughter, 
and  to  Alice  in  the  adjoining  room. 

Several  days  of  the  Nohant  visit  were  occupied  in  excur- 
sions to  places  of  interest  in  the  neighbourhood,  to  the 
Druidical  monuments  of  Crevant  and  to  La  Mare  au  Diable. 

After  they  had  left  Nohant  the  Adams  continued  to  see 
a  great  deal  of  George  Sand.  In  the  autumn  of  1868  they 
accompanied  her  on  a  tour  to  the  Meuse  Valley,  which  she 
intended  to  make  the  scene  of  her  next  novel,  Malgre  Tout. 
The  great  George  was  a  valiant  traveller.  None  of  the 
discomforts  of  country  tours  in  days  when  inns  were  close 
and  filthy  disturbed  her.  With  what  she  called  the  poltron- 
nerie  of  Juliette  and  Alice,  who  complained  of  sleepless 
nights  spent  in  hunting  vermin,  their  friend  had  no 
sympathy.  She  only  jeered  at  them  for  not  following 
her  example  and  keeping  the  pests  away  by  smoking 
cigars  and  cigarettes. 

Mme.  Sand  returned  with  her  friends  to  Paris.  There 
she  established  herself  in  a  flat  in  the  Rue  Gay-Lussac, 
from  the  windows  of  which  she  could  see  her  beloved 
Luxembourg.  Her  chambermaid,  who  had  not  the  remotest 
idea  of  her  mistress's  distinction,  always  addressed  her 
as  "  Madame  de  Cendre,"  and  George  forbade  any  one  to 
enlighten  her. 

Mme.  Sand  had  come  to  Paris  to  assist  at  the  rehearsals 
at  the  Porte-Saint-Martin  of  her  play  Cadio.  This  inde- 
fatigable old  lady  of  threescore  years  and  more,  went 
every  evening  to  the  theatre,  where  she  stayed  from  six  till 
two.  In  her  company  Juliette  for  the  first  time  penetrated 
"  behind."     She  was  also  present  on  the  first  night.     But 


FRIENDSHIP   WITH   GEORGE   SAND     131 

the  play  was  a  failure.  According  to  the  author,  this  was 
chiefly  because  the  principal  actor,  one  Roger,  persisted  in 
wearing  a  hat  with  a  white  leather  instead  of  a  battered 
and  weather-stained  cap.  As  the  curtain  was  about  to 
rise  Mnic.  Sand  tore  out  the  feather  and  broke  it.  But 
swift  as  lightning  Mine.  Roger,  an  ex-milliner,  sewed  it 
together  again.  The  actor  entered  beplunied.  "  La  piece 
est  perdu!"  cried  the  authoress. 

The  next  year  the  Adams  were  staying  at  Pierrefonds. 
There  George  Sand  joined  them,  and  they  spent  together 
a  delightful  fortnight  there.  In  all  that  concerned  her 
young  friend,  in  Juliette's  spiritual,  professional,  domestic 
and  physical  welfare,  Mme.  Sand  took  the  deepest  interest. 
She  marvelled  at  the  numerous  activities  Juliette  continued 
to  crowd  into  her  life. 

"  J' admire  qetant  '  mondaine'  et  tou jours  par  monts  et 
par  vaux,"  she  writes,  "  et  ires  occupie  de  la  famille  et  du 
menage,  vous  ayez  le  temps  d'ecrire  et  de  penser.  Au  reste, 
cette  activite  est  bonne  a  V esprit,  mais  nusez  pas  trop  le 
corps."  x 

Sometimes  George  Sand  feared  for  her  friend  the  conse- 
quences of  her  excitable  temperament  and  her  untiring 
energy.  She  would  have  liked  to  have  seen  in  her  some- 
thing of  the  serenity  which  the  great  George  had  herself 
acquired.  But  she  realised  that  with  Juliette,  as  with 
herself,  this  calm,  this  aloofness  from  life's  petty  worries, 
would  come  with  old  age.  "  We  must  not  ask  youth  to 
anticipate  age,"  she  wrote.  "And  youth's  charm  is  in  its 
impressionability."  2  Nevertheless,  she  adjures  her  friend 
to  cultivate  moderation  in  all  things,  not  to  strive  after 
violent  sensations.  "  You  are  passionate  and  exalted," 
she  wrote  to  Juliette ;  "  that  is  good  and  beautiful,  and  we 
love  you  for  it."  "  But,"  she  adds,  "  do  not,  in  your  crav- 
ing for  emotion,  afflict  yourself  unnecessarily.  Spend  your- 
self, but  do  not  waste  yourself.  .  .  .  Your  sleeplessness 
is  not  natural  to  youth."  It  indicated,  thought  Mme. 
Sand,  that  something  was  wrong  in  Juliette's  ordering  of 
her  life.  She  advised  her  not  to  work  at  night,  but  to  go  to 
bed  at  eleven,  to  rise  at  six  and  to  write  then,  before  the 
time  came  for  her  daughter's  morning  lessons.  The  writer 
of  this  letter  did  not  herself  follow  these  precepts.  But 
she  had  long  passed  out  of  Juliette's  condition  of  nervous 
1  George  Sand,  Correspondance,  V.  317.  *  Ibid.,  250, 


132  MADAME   ADAM 

excitability.  "  Work,"  she  added,  "  is  an  act  of  lucidity. 
Now,  perfect  lucidity  is  impossible  without  preliminary 
rest." 

Alas  !  the  course  of  international  affairs  was  rapidly 
rendering  impossible  that  calm  restfulness  to  which  George 
Sand  was  so  wisely  exhorting  Juliette. 

In  the  summer  of  1870  the  Adams  repeated  their  visit  to 
Nohant.  On  the  15th  of  July  diplomatic  relations  between 
France  and  Prussia  were  severed.  On  the  25th,  M.  Emile 
Ollivier  read  before  the  Corps  Legislatif  the  French  Govern- 
ment's declaration  of  war. 

The  house-party  at  Nohant  immediately  broke  up,  and 
the  Adams  returned  to  Paris. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE    WAR    AND    PREPARATION    FOR    THE    SIEGE    OF    PARIS 

1870 

"Nous  serons  vaincus.  II  riy  a  qu'a  voir  le  desordre,  V  impossibilite.  des 
armemenls." — George  Sand  to  Mme.  Adam,  August  18, 1870. 

For  years  a  few  clear-sighted  Frenchmen  had  seen  the 
German  Peril  approaching.  Now  it  was  at  the  gates  of 
France.  George  Sand  and  Edmond  Adam  had  been  more 
afraid  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Contagion."  They  had  been 
inclined  to  scoff  at  Nefftzcr's  jeremiads ; 1  but  now,  alas  ! 
they  proved  to  be  only  too  well  founded. 

The  Adams  in  the  anguish  of  their  souls  recalled  their 
memorable  drive,2  in  the  spring  of  1869,  along  the  Corniche 
Road,  in  the  company  of  Nino  Bixio,  the  Garibaldian  hero, 
who  was  then  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Italian  army. 
Bixio  had  just  returned  from  Germany,  whither  he  had  gone 
at  Victor  Emmanuel's  command  in  order  to  ascertain  the 
precise  condition  of  the  Prussian  army.  Bixio  had  come 
back  firmly  convinced  that  Bismarck  was  preparing  war 
against  France. 

"  And  you  are  not  ready,"  he  had  said  to  the  Adams ;  "  you 
will  be  thoroughly  beaten."  3 

Then  Adam,  ghastly  pale  and  half  rising  from  his  seat, 
had  cried  :  "  Silence,  Nino,  or  I  will  throw  you  into  the 
sea.  France,  beaten  by  the  Prussians  !  Never,  do  you  hear  ? 
Never." 

"And  do  you  think  it  would  give  me  pleasure?"  the 
Italian  had  retorted.  "  But  understand,  if  you  don't  wish 
to  be  beaten  .  .  .  then  make  an  end  of  your  opposition's 
foolish,  wicked,  criminal  campaign  against  militarism.  It 
is  militarism  which,  entering  into  the  very  manow  of 
Prussian  bones,  has  for  half  a  century  been  preparing  her 
to  take  her  revenge  for  Jena.     Ah  !  my  poor  Adam  !     How 

1  See  ante,  99.  *  Ibid.,  118.,  ■  Souvenirs,  III.  349  et  seq. 

133 


154  MADAME   ADAM 

blind  is  France.  .  .  .  Your  Napoleon  III  is  a  provoker  of 
invasion,  and  you  republicans,  you  will  be  ready  to  eat 
your  hearts  out  for  having  been  party  men  before  French- 
men.    When  you  refuse  him  soldiers,  you  are  idiotic." 

Then  Bixio  had  spoken  of  the  negotiations  for  a  triple 
alliance  between  France,  Italy  and  Austria  against  Ger- 
many. According  to  the  Italian  General,  it  was  Napoleon's 
support  of  the  papacy,  in  which  he  was  encouraged  by  his 
ultramontane  Empress,  that  had  rendered  these  negotia- 
tions fruitless. 

In  order  to  pass  on  to  their  political  friends  Bixio' s 
warnings,  the  Adams  had  hastened  their  return  to  Paris. 
But  they  might  have  spared  themselves  the  trouble.  For, 
with  the  exceptions  of  Thiers  and  Nefftzer,  no  one  had 
paid  any  heed  whatever  to  the  Italian  General's  prognosti- 
cations. French  politicians  were  then  absorbed  in  domes- 
tic affairs.  But  in  a  few  weeks  international  matters  forced 
themselves  upon  their  attention.  For  a  new  cloud  ap- 
peared on  the  horizon.  This  was  General  Prim's  offer  of 
the  Spanish  crown  to  a  prince  of  the  House  of  Hohenzollern. 
With  feverish  eagerness  Juliette  and  her  friends  had  fol- 
lowed these  negotiations.  Instead  of  the  usual  weekly 
dinner-party,  followed  by  a  reception,  in  Mme.  Adam's  salon 
there  had  been  an  assembly  every  evening.  Juliette  and 
her  husband  were  full  of  alarm.  Their  German  friend, 
Louis  Bamberger,  said  :  "  This  time,  my  children,  you  will 
have  to  give  in."  x  One  evening  Adam,  who  had  been  to  see 
Thiers  in  the  afternoon,  related  how  the  petit  grand  homme 
had  entreated  him  to  supplicate  his  friends  not  to  play 
with  fire.  "  It  is  pure  folly,"  he  exclaimed,  "  we  are  on  a 
volcano." 

Then  had  come  the  news  that  Prince  Anthony  of  Hohen- 
zollern had  on  his  son's  behalf  renounced  the  candidature. 
"  The  incident  is  closed,"  said  the  chief  minister,  Emile 
Ollivier.  "  We  were  on  the  eve  of  war,"  said  Thiers,  "  but 
now  everything  is  arranged." 

With  immense  relief,  believing  peace  to  be  assured,  the 
Adams,  who  had  postponed  their  visit  to  George  Sand  on 
account  of  the  national  crisis,  now  left  Paris  for  Nohant. 

But,  alas  !  their  equanimity  had  soon  been  disturbed. 
The  French  Government,  not  content  with  Prince  Anthony's 
undertaking,  had  required  from  the  King  of  Prussia  a 
1  Souvenirs,  III.  448. 


THE   WAR  135 

promise  that  henceforth  no  Hohcnzollern  should  ascend 
the  Spanish  throne.  King  William's  refusal  of  this  demand, 
and  the  events  of  the  following  fortnight,  had  culminated 
in  the  French  Government's  declaration  of  war  on  July  20th. 

On  the  afternoon  of  that  day  George  Sand  and  her  guests 
were  sitting  in  the  park  at  Nohant.  Conversation  lan- 
guished, for  the  menace  of  war  was  in  the  air.  Suddenly 
the  sound  of  a  drum  was  heard.  Every  member  of  the 
company  trembled.  .  .  .  Maurice  came  towards  them, 
girded  with  a  drum,  and  crying,  Vive  la  France  !  George 
Sand  and  Juliette  Adam  burst  into  tears,  while  all  echoed 
that  cry  Vive  la  France,  which  henceforth  was  to  be  the 
motive  power  of  all  Mme.  Adam's  being.1 

On  their  return  to  Paris  the  Adams  found  awaiting  them 
numerous  letters  from  their  friends,  containing  various 
opinions  as  to  the  declaration  of  war.  France  in  those 
days  was  not  without  her  conscientious  objectors.  The 
pacifist  Aries  Dufour  would  have  preferred  civil  to  inter- 
national war.  "  The  former  would  have  cost  less  in  men 
and  in  money,"  he  wrote.  M.  Adam's  German  friend,  Louis 
Bamberger,  took  his  leave  of  him,  saying,  "  Love  your 
country,  Adam,  as  I  love  mine.  I  send  you  a  last  remem- 
brance before  the  shock  of  arms."  Bamberger,  desiring 
with  all  his  heart  German  unity,  was  the  fervent  admirer  of 
Bismarck,  whom  he  regarded  as  alone  able  to  achieve  it. 

Hetzel  reported  in  Juliette's  salon  how  he  had  just  seen 
Merimee.  In  the  previous  winter,  at  Bruyeres,  Juliette 
had  found  her  friend  obsessed  by  the  impending  calamity.2 
"  You  republicans,"  he  had  said,  "  you  have  disarmed 
France;  and  we  imperialists,  asleep  in  our  false  security, 
have  abandoned  her."  "  Now,"  said  Hetzel,  "  Merimee 
is  deploring  his  country's  unpreparedness."  "  We  have 
soldiers,  but  we  have  no  generals,"  he  lamented.  .  .  .  "  Je 
supplie  le  grand  Mecanicien,  si  nous  devons  etre  vaincus, 
de  faire  cesser  mes  tours  de  roue."3  Merimee' s  prayer  was 
granted  :  dying  on  the  24th  of  September,  1870,  he  did 
not  live  to  see  the  consummation  of  his  country's  defeat.4 

Paul  de  Saint- Victor,  Juliette's  Catholic  friend,  was 
furious  against  Renan,  whom  he  accused  of  being  pro- 
German.     It  was  true  that  Renan  had  admired  much  that 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  464.  2  Ibid.,  409.  8  Ibid.,  470. 

*  For  Mme.  Adam's  description  of  the  grim  incident  which  occurred  at 
his  funeral,  see  Souvenirs,  V.  66. 


136  MADAME   ADAM 

was  German,  and  that  he  had  often  despaired  of  the  future 
of  France.  He  believed  that  the  Germans  would  be  the 
teachers  of  the  world.1 

"  Several  of  the  University  professors,"  remarks  Mme. 
Adam,  "  have  not  yet  been  able  to  bring  themselves  to 
love  France  as  much  as  they  have  admired  Germany."  2 

Nevertheless,  despite  these  differences  of  opinion,  a  great 
wave  of  patriotism  swept  through  the  country.  "  II  n'y  a 
plus  de  petits  creves,"  writes  Juliette,  "Us  ont  disparu  comme 
par  miracle  et  sont  devenus  les  soldats  de  noire  France."  3 

"  People  are  beginning  once  more  to  use  the  word  patrie.* 
It  had  been  forgotten,  buried  beneath  humanitarianism. 
Now  it  returns.  It  is  uttered  with  reverence  and  devotion. 
Adam  and  I,  when  we  pronounce  it,  feel  that  to  us  both  it  is 
equally  sacred." 

Merimee  had  deplored  the  lack  of  generals  in  France. 
Bixio  had  said,  "  You  have  neither  a  Moltke,  nor  a  Bismarck, 
nor  a  William."  When  Bazaine  was  appointed  to  command 
the  Lorraine  army,  Mme.  Adam  went  to  see  her  old  friend 
Toussenel,  who  had  known  Bazaine  at  the  time  of  the 
Mexican  expedition.  "  He  is  no  soldier,"  said  Toussenel ; 
"  I  am  more  of  one  than  he.  He  may  be  a  politician.  He 
is  probably  not  lacking  in  diplomacy,  neither  will  he  be 
above  intrigue."  5 

The  hesitations  and  inactivity  of  the  French  army  during 
the  first  days  of  the  war  filled  with  misgiving  the  Adams  and 
their  friends.  "  We  had  thought,"  writes  Juliette,6  "  that 
we  could  arrest  the  Prussian  advance  by  throwing  ourselves 
before  the  enemy  with  all  our  furia  francese  and  our  united 
forces.  But  already  our  troops  are  scattered.  There  are 
marches  and  countermarches,  but  no  advance.  As  during 
the  Italian  war,  so  now,  there  is  no  unity  of  command." 
In  those  days  Parisians,  like  ourselves  during  the  present 
war,  were  troubled  by  the  lack  of  news.  Silence,  sus- 
pense, were  harder  to  bear  than  anything.  "  A  frightful 
silence  fills  the  boulevard,"  writes  Edmond  de  Goncourt. 
"  There  is  not  a  carriage  to  be  heard,  not  a  child's  cry  of  joy, 
and  on  the  horizon  is  a  Paris  where  sound  itself  seems  dead." 
When  it  did  arrive  the  news  was  as  bad  as  could  be.  All 
through  August  came  tidings  of  defeat  after  defeat :  Wis- 

1  Grant  Duff  in  Notes  from  a  Diary,  September  1864. 

2  Souvenirs,  III.  471.  3  Ibid.,  468.  *  Ibid.,  471. 
8  Ibid.,  470.                               6  Ibid.,  473. 


THE   WAR  187 

sembourg  on  the  4th ;  Forbach  and  Woerth  on  one  day, 
the  6th  ;  then,  on  the  9th,  the  fall  of  Ollivier  and  the  Ministry ; 
finally,  on  the  1st  of  September,  the  rout  of  Sedan. 

On  the  evening  of  the  .'3rd,  when  about  six  o'clock  the 
terrible  tidings  began  to  spread  like  wild-fire  through  Paris, 
people  came  out  into  the  streets,  crowds  thronged  the  boule- 
vards, growing  every  hour.  By  ten  o'clock,  Paris  between 
the  Rue  Montmartre  and  the  Grand  Opera  presented  the 
appearance  of  one  immense  forum.  Juliette  went  down 
and  mingled  with  the  people,  listening  to  their  conversation. 

Everywhere  the  humiliation  and  disgrace  of  France  were 
described  as  unbearable.  All  manner  of  charges  were 
brought  against  the  Emperor.  Napoleon  was  said  to  have 
surrendered,  not  himself  alone,  but  the  munitions  of  the 
army.  His  own  personal  baggage,  however,  that  long  train 
of  wagons  encumbering  the  march  of  his  soldiers,  which 
had  won  for  him  the  nickname  of  Empereur  Colis  (Luggage 
Emperor),  he  had  saved  from  the  hands  of  the  enemy.1 

"  The  Prussians  will  be  at  Laon  to-morrow,  and  in  three 
days  before  Paris,"  murmured  one.  "  Wherever  you  look 
it  is  ruin.  Our  last  army  has  capitulated.  We  are  a  nation 
no  longer.     We  are  nothing  but  a  troop  of  prisoners." 

"  Down  with  the  Empire  !  "  shouted  hundreds  of  voices. 
All  the  hatred  of  the  crowd  at  first  focussed  on  Buonaparte, 
then  it  turned  against  the  Corps  Legislatif,  the  Parliament, 
which  had  voted  this  accursed  war,  and  by  its  baseness  had 
consummated  the  national  disaster.  The  Chamber  had 
been  hastily  convoked,  and  at  midnight  it  was  still  sitting. 
"  We  must  march  against  it  and  turn  it  out,"  howled  the 
crowd.  But  on  the  point  of  falling  in  for  this  purpose  there 
was  a  hesitation.  "What  should  be  the  rallying  cry?" 
Parisians  more  than  any  other  people  in  the  world  have  ever 
been  dominated  by  fine  and  appropriate  words.  And  it 
was  perfectly  characteristic  of  the  Paris  mob  that  it  found 
itself  incapable  of  proceeding  until  it  should  have  discovered 
le  mot  juste,  the  rallying  cry,  which  should  lead  it  like  a 
banner. 

"  Down  with  the  Corps  Legislatif?  "  was  suggested. 

"  No  !     No  !  " 

"  Long  live  the  Republic?  " 

"  No,  it  is  too  soon  for  that." 

"  Vive  la  France  ?  " 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  2. 


138  MADAME   ADAM 

"  No,  that  is  too  well  known." 

"  Death  to  the  Prussians  ?  " 

"  Better  wait  for  that." 

But  suddenly  the  crowd  found  the  word,  a  word  which 
indicated  the  tenor  of  the  Revolution  which  was  to  follow  : 
a  word  which  like  a  ray  of  light  was  to  conciliate  a  hundred 
opinions,  to  gather  into  one  collective  act  a  hundred 
individual  energies,  a  simple,  powerful,  irresistible,  sonorous 
word,  the  voice  of  the  people  pronouncing  the  people's 
sentence  upon  that  imperial  rSgime,  which,  for  close  on  a 
score  of  years,  had  been  preparing  the  ruin  of  France ;  the 
word  was  dechSance  (dethronement).  To  the  refrain  of 
that  word  scanned  thus — De" — chS — ance,  and  sung  to  the 
refrain  of  Les  Lampions,  the  crowd  thronged  westward  on 
to  the  Place  de  la  Bastille,  to  awake  that  revolutionary 
quarter,  the  Faubourg  Saint  Antoine,  asleep  for  twenty 
years.  Then  back  again  it  surged  on  to  the  boulevards, 
there  to  deliberate  and  to  postpone  the  attack  on  the  Corps 
Legislatif  until  the  morrow,  Sunday. 

In  the  small  hours  of  that  Sabbath  morning  Juliette 
from  her  window  watched  the  boulevards  emptying,  the 
people  going  home,  but  not  to  sleep.  Lights  in  the 
windows  announced  a  vigil — la  veillee  des  larmes. 

"  II  semble,"  writes  Mme.  Adam,  "  que  sous  chaque  toit  un 
malade  est  a  toute  eoctremite  et  quon  passe  la  nuit  a  son  chevet.1 
Ce  malade  cest  ha  France  a  Vagonie." 

The  4th  of  September  dawned  resplendent,  an  ideal 
autumn  day.  "  The  sun  shines  to-day,"  writes  Juliette 
in  her  diary.2  "It  is  the  people's  sun.  There  is  no  fear 
of  rain  damping  our  patriotism."  3 

In  this  diary,  which  she  kept  for  her  daughter,  who  was 
away  in  Normandy,  staying  near  Granville  with  her  grand- 
parents, Mme.  Adam,  as  they  passed,  described  the  events  of 
those  memorable  hours.  By  ten  o'clock  all  Paris  was  in  the 
streets,  thronging  towards  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and  the 
bridge  leading  to  the  Chambre  des  Deputes,  where  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Corps  Legislatif  were  to  meet  at  twelve  o'clock. 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  7. 

2  This  diary,  first  published  in  Le  Rappel,  was  afterwards  embodied  in 
the  series  of  Mme.  Adam's  Souvenirs,  of  which  it  constitutes  the  fourth 
volume,  entitled  Mes  Illusions  et  nos  Souffrances  pendant  le  siege  de  Paris. 

3  To  Edmond  de  Goncourt  (Journal  under  September  4,  1870)  the 
4th  of  September  seemed  a  "  grey  day."  Jules  Favre,  Gouvernement  de  la 
Defense  Nationale,  I.  64,  writes,  "la  journee  .  .  .  se  leva  iiede  et  radieuse.n 


THE    WAR  189 

Meanwhile,  as  the  surging  crowd  outside  grew  larger  and 
larger  and  more  and  more  clamant,  in  the  smoking-room 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  perplexed  deputies  were 
vainly  seeking  some  new  form  of  government  to  replace 
the  Empire.  They  were  hurriedly  turning  over  pages 
describing  those  numerous  constitutional  experiments 
which  France  had  been  trying  since  the  Great  Revolution; 
between  the  Palais  Legislatif  and  the  Palais  des  Tuileries, 
where  the  Empress  was  on  the  point  of  flight,  all  the  time 
despairing  ministers  were  hurrying  to  and  fro.  To  Thiers' 
house  on  the  Place  St.  Georges  the  dying  Merimee  was 
dragging  himself  to  entreat,  on  behalf  of  a  woman  and  her 
son,  the  intervention  of  le  petit  grand  homme  on  whose 
wisdom  every  one  counted. 

Mme.  Adam,  from  her  place  of  vantage  in  a  corner  of 
the  bridge  close  to  the  balustrade  and  the  great  lamps, 
listened  to  the  talk  which  surged  around  her.  Some  wanted 
a  republic,  others  feared  that  a  republic  would  mean  a 
revolution.  With  the  fire  of  republicanism  burning  in 
her  own  heart  like  a  religion,  Juliette  felt  moved  to  inter- 
vene in  what  she  describes  as  her  first  public  speech. 

"  The  Republic,"  she  exclaimed,  "  is  not  decreed,  it  is 
made,  it  is  born  of  yourselves.  It  represents  the  highest 
degree  of  courage,  of  intelligence,  of  activity,  of  expansion 
to  which  a  nation  can  attain.  If  society  be  a  magnified 
edition  of  individuals,  then  the  Republic  is  the  result  of 
our  noblest  actions,  a  living  assemblage  of  our  broadest 
and  most  progressive  duties,  rights  and  interests.  Hence- 
forth no  social  malady,  no  monarchical  canker  shall  kill  it. 
Then  long  live  the  Republic."  x 

"  My  pathos,"  writes  Mme.  Adam,  "  was  not  without 
its  success.  But  my  chief  delight  was  to  hear  repeated 
around  me  by  thousands  of  voices  :    Vive  la  Rcpubliqae." 

From  twelve  till  three,  while  ministers  were  deliberating 
and  Eugenie  de  Monti  jo  was  escaping  from  her  Palace,  the 
mob  continued  to  surge  round  the  Chambre  des  Deputes. 

At  half-past  three  the  deputies  heard  the  crashing  noise 
of  doors  being  broken  open  :  the  crowd  had  invaded  the 
Chamber.  But,  like  Charles  I,  the  Parisians  found  that  the 
birds  had  flown ;  no  ministers  were  present,  there  were 
only  a  few  deputies  of  the  left.  Among  them  was  Gam- 
betta.  He  vainly  tried  to  address  the  mob.  But  even  that 
1  Souvenirs,  IV.  23. 


140  MADAME   ADAM 

resonant  voice  could  not  obtain  a  hearing.  Amidst  cries 
of  "  Where  are  the  ministers  ?  "  he  was  howled  down.  And 
it  was  not  until  the  ministers  had  reappeared,  and  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Chamber,  M.  Schneider,  from  his  official  seat, 
had  reminded  the  people  of  the  danger  threatening  them, 
with  the  enemy  barely  one  hundred  miles  away,  that  there 
was  something  like  order.  The  ministers,  fearing  the 
violence  of  the  mob,  stayed  but  a  brief  space  in  the  Chamber. 
After  their  departure,  Gambetta  entered  the  tribune  and 
declared  that  Louis  Napoleon  Buonaparte  and  his  dynasty 
had  for  ever  ceased  to  reign  in  France. 

Forthwith,  at  the  invitation  of  another  deputy  of  the  left, 
Jules  Favre,  the  crowd  followed  Favre  himself  and  Gam- 
betta to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  There  at  half-past  four  the 
Republic  was  proclaimed  and  the  Government  of  National 
Defence  declared.  Its  President  was  General  Trochu, 
Governor  of  Paris  and  Minister  of  War.  Of  the  fourteen 
members,  all  deputies  either  for  Paris  or  the  department  of 
Seine,  nine  were  the  Adams'  personal  friends.  Gambetta 
was  Minister  of  the  Interior,  Ernest  Picard  of  Finance, 
Jules  Simon  of  Education,  Jules  Favre  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
Dorian  of  Public  Works.  Garnier-Pages,  Pelletan,  Em- 
manuel Arago  and  Rochefort  were  all  ministers  without 
portfolios.1  When  the  Revolution  broke  out  Rochefort  was 
in  prison  on  a  charge  of  high  treason,  based  on  his  attacks 
on  the  Empire  in  his  paper  La  Lanterne.  On  the  afternoon 
of  the  4th,  he  was  liberated  by  the  crowd  and  brought  in 
triumph  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 

"  The  end  of  that  day  was  splendid,"  writes  Juliette.2 
"  A  fresh  breeze  blew  from  the  old  river  of  Paris  on  to  the 
assembled  multitude.  Once  again  the  Hotel  de  Ville  had 
become  le  Louvre  superbe  des  revolutions.  The  last  rays 
of  the  setting  sun  gilded  that  people's  palace,  played  upon 
its  windows,  causing  them  to  sparkle  with  a  brilliance  far 
surpassing  the  glitter  of  all  the  diamonds  in  the  imperial 
crown." 

The  Revolution  had  passed  without  the  shedding  of  a 
drop  of  blood,  without  a  single  deed  of  violent  disorder. 
The  forecast  of  a  working  man,  whom  Juliette  had  over- 
heard that  afternoon,  had  come  true.     "  Ah,  well  !  "  he 

1  For  the  complete  list  of  members  of  the  Government,  see  Jules  Favre, 
Oouvernement  de  la  Defense  Nationale,  I.  89. 

2  Souvenirs,  IV.  40. 


THE   WAR  141 

had  exclaimed,  looking  round  on  the  crowd,1  "  we  are 
all  here — we,  the  robbers,  les  partageux,  the  assassins  !  Here 
we  are  on  this  fine  Sunday.  And  there  will  be  no  robbery 
and  no  assassination.  .  .  .  Every  one  is  pleased,  even  the 
omnibus  company ;  for  not  one  of  their  'buses  has  been  held 
up  and  they  have  not  lost  a  threepence." 

Indeed,  there  was  universal  rejoicing.  Confidence  and 
determination  shone  on  all  faces.  Old  friends  met  in  the 
street  and  embraced  one  another.  The  fall  of  that  oppres- 
sive regime  established  on  the  2nd  of  December  brought 
intense  relief.  On  the  day  after  the  Revolution,  George 
Sand  wrote  to  Mme.  Adam  from  Nohant  a  letter  of  fervent 
rejoicing  :  "  Quelle  grande  chose,"  she  exclaims,  "  quelle  belle 
journee  au  milieu  de  tant  de  desastres !  Je  riesperais  pas  cette 
victoire  de  la  liberie  sans  resistance."  2  Even  with  the  enemy 
advancing  to  their  gates  Parisians  breathed  again,  realis- 
ing that  henceforth  it  was  for  la  patrie  and  not  for  a  dynasty 
that  they  would  fight. 

Search  as  we  will  among  the  numerous  records  of  those 
memorable  hours,  penned  by  those  who  lived  through  them, 
we  shall  find  none  describing  more  vividly  than  these  forty 
pages  of  Mme.  Adam's  Souvenirs,  the  talk,  the  incidents 
and  the  movements  of  that  vast  crowd,  thronging  the  Paris 
streets,  all  swayed  by  the  excitement  of  a  revolution.  For 
la  grande  Francaise,  as  Mme.  Adam  was  later  to  be  called, 
never  lives  more  intensely  than  when  in  a  crowd.  "  Je  vis 
a"une  autre  existence  des  que  je  me  mele  a  lafoule,"  she  writes.3 

The  gladness  of  that  September  evening,  however,  was  but 
a  rift  in  the  clouds  now  rapidly  enveloping  Paris.  The 
Prussians  were  expected  to  reach  the  capital  on  Thursday, 
the  8th  of  September.  They  did  not  arrive  until  the  19th. 
In  the  interval,  Mme.  Adam  took  a  hasty  night  journey  to 
Granville,  in  order  that  Alice  might  have  a  glimpse  of  her 
mother  before  she  was  shut  up  in  the  besieged  city.  After 
waiting  five  hours  in  a  queue  at  the  Gare  Montparnasse,  she 
obtained  tickets  for  herself  and  her  maid,  and  caught  one  of 
the  few  trains  running.  Adam  feared  that  she  might  not 
be  able  to  return.  But  after  spending  a  few  hours  with  her 
family,  whom  she  was  not  to  see  again  for  many  months,  she 
tore  herself  away  and  entered  the  Paris  train,  which  was  said 
to  be  the  last.     Indeed,  whether  it  would  continue  as  far 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  30.  *  George  Sand,  Correspondence,  VI.  29. 

*  Souvenirs,  IV.  244. 


142  MADAME   ADAM 

as  Paris  seemed  doubtful.  Juliette  and  her  maid,  who,  with 
three  fellow-travellers  and  a  dog,  were  the  only  passengers 
bound  for  that  destination,  were,  however,  promised  by  the 
driver  that,  if  compelled  to  abandon  his  train,  he  would  take 
them  on  his  engine  into  Paris.  This  was  unnecessary,  for,  to 
the  immense  joy  of  Adam,  who  had  almost  ceased  to  hope 
for  his  wife's  return,  the  whole  train  steamed  into  the  Gare 
Montparnasse. 

This  was  on  the  11th  of  September.  During  the  follow- 
ing days  Juliette  was  busy  stocking  her  larder  ready  for 
the  siege. 

"  Je  vais,  je  trotte,  pour  completer  mes  provisions ,"  she 
writes.  "  Ilfaut  tant  de  choses !  Tout  peut  manquer  a  an  mo- 
ment donne,  jusquau  sel,  jusquau  poivre,  jusqu'a  la  moutarde. 
Je  deploie  dans  mes  recherches  tout  mon  genie  domestique.  Je 
ne  reve  que  mouton  a" Australie,  Liebig,  jambon,  legumes  Chollet, 
ipicerie,  comestibles.  Mes  poches,  ma  robe,  mes  bas,  mes  mains, 
sont  toujours  encombres  quand  je  rentre.  Si  je  decouvre 
une  conserve  nouvelle,  je  reve  a  Vetonnement  quelle  causera 
dans  trois  mois,  aux  amis  que  j'inviterai  a  la  manger  !  Verrai- 
je  des  heros  surgir  dans  mon  entourage  :  au  lieu  de  leur 
tresser  des  courronnes,  oVorner  leur  maison  de  guirlandes,  je 
leur  offrirai  une  bouteille  de  jeunes  carottes  confites,  un  sac  de 
choux  frises :  ilfaut  qumon  heros  ait  accompli  les  plus  grands 
exploits  pour  que  je  lui  presente  un  fromage  tete  de  mort  de 
Hollander  x 

All  Juliette's  friends  were  similarly  employed.  "  Le 
fanatisme  de  la  provision  nous  possede  tous  !  "  she  exclaims, 
on  meeting  a  Member  of  Parliament  loaded  with  boxes 
of  sardines. 

Having  furnished  her  larder,  Mme.  Adam  next  volun- 
teered to  nurse  the  wounded,  who  were  pouring  into  Paris. 
Her  father's  lessons  in  anatomy,  her  grandfather's  lessons 
in  the  dressing  of  wounds,  now  stood  her  in  good  stead.  She 
was  appointed  to  install  in  the  Conservatoire  de  Musique  a 
private  hospital  with  fifty  beds.  Henceforth  the  provision- 
ing and  equipping  of  this  hospital  and  the  others  which 
she  organised  later  became  her  chief  concern.  "  I  hold 
out  my  hand  to  every  one ;  I  beg,  I  write,  I  do  everything 
to  get  money,"  she  says.  It  was  a  grand  day  when  the 
hospital  workers,  well  provided  with  bags,  bottles  and 
baskets,  were  permitted  to  penetrate  into  the  Tuileries,  now 
1  Souvenirs,  IV.  62. 


THE    WAR  143 

given  back  to  the  nation,  and  to  replenish  their  stores  from 
the  imperial  larder.  Lists  had  been  made  out  of  the  viands 
to  which  each  hospital  was  entitled  :  macaroni  for  the 
Conservatoire  dc  Musique,  sausages  for  the  Picpus  Hospital, 
kidney  beans  for  the  Theatre  francais,  oil  for  the  Grand 
Orient,  jam  for  all. 

In  connection  with  the  Conservatoire  Hospital,  Mine. 
Adam  organised  a  workroom  where  the  wives,  mothers 
and  daughters  of  the  men  who  were  fighting,  instead  of 
staying  at  home  and  eating  their  hearts  out  with  anxiety, 
could  meet  together,  and,  while  sewing  for  the  wounded, 
encourage  one  another  and  sympathise  with  one  another's 
sufferings. 

Edmond  Adam  was  a  member  of  the  Government 
Committee  appointed  to  investigate  the  condition  of  the 
general  hospitals.  This  he  found  so  lamentable,  that  in 
many  instances,  owing  to  the  infection  of  wards  and  oper- 
ating theatres,  amputation  cases  had  no  chance  of  recovery. 

Despite  the  difficulties  and  dangers  which  beset  her  on 
every  hand,  Mme.  Adam's  heart  burned  with  a  courage  and 
a  hope,  which  her  friend,  George  Sand,  appreciated  to  the 
full,  when  she  wrote  to  her  from  Nohant  on  the  15th  of 
September.1  "  Vous  etes  genereusement  exaltee  par  un  peril 
prochain  et  difini."  This  was  one  of  the  last  letters  Mme. 
Adam  received  before  the  gates  of  Paris  were  closed. 

1  Corrttpondanee  d«  Georgt  Sand,  VI.  34. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    SIEGE    OF   PARIS 

September  19,  1870— January  28,  1871 

"  Ce  caractere  parisien,  qu'on  peut  aujourd'hui  resumer  en  un  seul  mot : 
Mroisme." — Mme.  Adam,  Souvenirs,  December  7,  1870. 

"  At  present,"  said  Mme.  Adam  to  a  friend  on  the  27th 
of  September,  1870,  "  we  have  barely  endured  ten  days 
of  siege.  And  I  will  wager  that  in  three  months  I  shall 
not  be  any  more  disgusted  with  it  than  I  am  at  present."  x 

Juliette  won  her  bet,  for  during  the  first  three  months 
of  the  siege  she  bore  her  sufferings  cheerfully  and  without 
flinching.  And  even  during  the  fourth  month,  though  her 
health  broke  down,  her  courage  did  not  fail. 

During  those  interminable  four  months  the  two  million 
souls  cooped  up  in  Paris  knew  every  misery  which  has 
ever  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the  besieged  :  internal  discontent 
and  disorder,  resulting  in  the  abortive  revolution  of  the 
31st  of  October;  extreme  scarcity  of  food  and  munitions  of 
war  for  nearly  three  weeks,  the  20th  of  December  until  the 
8th  of  January ;  complete  isolation  from  the  rest  of  France 
and  from  the  whole  outer  world.2  To  these  sufferings, 
which  Juliette  shared  with  her  fellow-citizens,  was  added 
her  personal  anxiety  for  her  daughter's  safety.  She  did 
not  even  know  where  her  daughter  was.  She  hoped  that 
Alice,  with  her  grandparents,  had  succeeded  in  crossing 
to  Jersey;  for  the  Prussians  were  said  to  have  invaded 
Normandy.  But  for  many  a  long  week,  from  the  19th  of 
September  until  the  20th  of  December,  no  news  came. 
Juliette  endured  this  agony  of  suspense  with  fortitude. 
Then  at  length,  through  Mme.  de  Pierreclos,  came  tidings 
that  Alice  was  well  and  with  her  grandparents  at  St. 
Helier.  Straightway  Juliette's  motherly  mind  flies  at  once 
to  other  anxious  parents  in  the  besieged  city  who  are  still 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  88.         2  Sarcey,  Le  Siege  de  Paris,  Eng.  trans.,  250. 

144 


THE   SIEGE   OF   PARIS  145 

without  news  of  their  children.  For  all  through  those 
days  of  horror  Mme.  Adam's  heart  never  ceased  to  b<  a1 
in  unison  with  the  hearts  of  her  fellow-sufferers,  to  bleed 

with  their  sorrows,  to  throb  with  their  anxieties  .-111(1 
their  fears.  Living  thus  in  constant  communion  with  her 
neighbours,  she  was  able  to  depict  graphically  in  her 
journal  the  perpetual  ebb  and  flow  of  public  feeling  and 
opinion:  now  it  was  confident  and  hopeful,  now  for- 
boding  and  doubtful,  but  never,  not  even  in  the  ghastly 
days  of  the  end,  completely  conquered  by  despair. 
Throughout,  with  the  exception  of  the  actual  days  of 
bombardment,  the  comic  spirit,  Juliette's  inseparable 
friend,  never  forsook  her;  and,  while  feeling  to  the  tragic 
point  the  sufferings  of  others,  she  was  able  to  joke  about 
her  own  sorrows  and  privations. 

Next  to  her  separation  from  Alice,  the  hardest  to  bear 
of  her  personal  trials  during  the  siege  was  being  compelled 
to  leave  her  flat  in  the  Boulevard  Poissonniere.  On  the 
11th  of  October,  Adam  having  been  appointed  Prefect  of 
Police,  he  and  his  wife  had  to  take  up  their  abode  in  the 
Prefecture. 

In  the  halls  and  corridors  of  that  gloomy  building, 
what  hours  of  weary  waiting  for  a  passport's  stamping 
have  not  many  of  us  endured  during  this  war-time  !  We 
can  well  sympathise,  therefore,  with  Mme.  Adam's  horror  at 
the  idea  of  spending  not  hours  only,  but  days,  weeks  and 
months  within  the  Prefecture's  lugubrious  portals.  We 
can  understand  her  grief  at  being  obliged  to  exchange  her 
cheerful  flat,  her  "  dovecot "  on  the  Boulevard  Poissonniere, 
for  Vaffreuse  prison  in  the  Rue  de  Jerusalem. 

To  any  one  with  her  vivid  imagination  it  was  a  perfect 
nightmare  merely  to  watch  the  going  and  coming  of  the 
prison-vans,  lumbering  into  the  courtyard  of  La  Sainte 
Chapelle,  and  to  hear  the  cries  of  "  No.  1  for  Mazas,  No.  2 
for  Ste.  Pelagic."  x 

It  was  during  her  residence  in  the  Prefecture  that 
occurred  that  insurrection  of  the  31st  of  October  which 
proved  a  premonition  of  the  Commune.  The  popular 
discontent  with  the  Government,  and  especially  with  its 
President,  General  Trochu,  who  was  also  Governor  of 
Paris,  had  been  growing  for  some  weeks.  It  was  brought 
to  a  head  by  the  news  that  Lc  Bourget,  one  of  the  forts 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  143. 
L 


146  MADAME   ADAM 

outside  the  capital,  which  had  been  captured  from  the 
Prussians  on  the  28th  of  October,  had  been  retaken  on 
the  29th.  On  the  30th,  Mme.  Adam,  on  her  way  to  her 
hospital  from  a  concert  in  the  Cirque  Pas  de  Loup,  found 
the  boulevard  in  an  almost  revolutionary  ferment.  The 
people  were  exclaiming :  "  We  do  not  demand  successes, 
but  we  will  not  have  defeats  resulting  from  our  general's 
frivolity,  carelessness  and  incapacity."  *  Later  in  the 
evening,  when  the  time  came  for  Juliette  to  return  home, 
she  found  the  tumult  had  increased.  As  she  pressed  her 
way  through  the  crowd  she  felt  its  sentiments  possessing 
her.  "  My  sorrows  mingled  with  theirs,"  she  writes,  "  my 
patriotism  with  their  patriotism." 

As  soon  as  she  saw  Adam  she  warned  him  of  the  state 
of  Paris.  But  he  knew  it  better  than  she,  and  her  warn- 
ing was  unnecessary.  There  was  a  dinner-party  at  the 
Prefecture  that  evening.  Both  at  table  and  afterwards 
in  her  salon,  the  guests,  among  whom  was  Rochefort, 
complained  as  loudly  as  the  crowd  of  the  Government's 
incapacity.  Every  one  found  fault  with  the  mismanage- 
ment which  had  resulted  in  the  loss  of  Le  Bourget.  Roche- 
fort  and  Adam  were  obliged  to  leave  to  attend  a  Cabinet 
meeting,2  held  to  receive  the  report  of  Thiers,  who  had 
just  returned  from  an  official  visit  to  the  Great  Powers 
on  the  subject  of  an  armistice.  Adam  did  not  come 
back  to  the  Prefecture  until  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning. 

The  news  that  he  brought  was  of  the  gravest.  The 
Prefect  of  the  Police  placed  no  reliance  whatever  on  the 
repeated  assurances  of  the  Governor  of  Paris  that  he 
would  maintain  order.  Juliette  had  long  since  lost  all 
faith  in  that  polished,  placid  person,  of  whom  every  one 
said,  c'est  un  homme  tres  distingue.  She  would  have  pre- 
ferred an  energetic  corporal.3  She  had  no  faith  in  the 
famous  "  plan."  It  had  never  been  confided  to  any  one; 
but  already  it  was  being  ridiculed  by  the  besieged  in 
the  following  couplets,  sung  up  and  down  Paris  streets — 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  150. 

2  The  Government  usually  met  in  the  evening  at  nine  o'clock,  and  the 
sessions  always  continued  until  after  midnight,  sometimes  till  two  or 
three  in  the  morning.  "  From  the  4th  of  September  till  the  8th  of 
February  we  never  missed  a  day,  and  often  we  had  additional  meetings," 
writes  Jules  Favre  (Gouvernement  de  la  Defense  Nationale,  I.  215). 

3  Souvenirs,  IV.  89. 


THE   SIEGE   OF   PARIS  147 

"  Jc  sais  le  plan  de  Trochu, 
Plan,  plan,  plan,  plan,  plan. 
Mon  Dieu  !  quel  l>eau  plan  ! 
Je  sais  le  plan  de  Trochu  ; 
( lr&06  a  lui  rien  n'est  perdu  ! 
Quand  sur  du  beau  papier  blanc, 
II  eut  eerit  son  affaire, 
II  alia  porter  son  plan 
Chez  maitre  Ducloux,  notaire — 
C'est  la,  qu'est  l'plan  de  Trochu, 
Plan,  plan,  plan,  plan,  plan. 
Mon  Dieu  !  quel  beau  plan  ! 
C'est  la,  qu'est  l'plan  de  Trochu; 
Grace  a  lui  rien  n'est  perdu  ! " 

Most  happily,  as  it  turned  out,  Adam  had  resolved  on 
taking  his  own  measures  in  order  to  guard  peaceful  citizens 
from  the  forces  of  violence  and  disorder.  He  depended  on 
the  Gardes  Mobiles,  recruited  in  the  provinces.  The  Garde 
Nationale  could  not  be  trusted.  It  would  probably  side 
with  the  populace.  And  a  parade  of  regular  troops  would 
only  irritate  the  malcontents. 

M.  Thiers,  after  the  Cabinet  meeting,  had  taken  Adam 
apart  and  confided  to  him  his  fear  that  the  mob,  furious 
against  Thiers  for  his  attempt  to  negotiate  an  armistice, 
might  attack  his  house  on  the  Place  St.  Georges  and 
endanger  the  lives  of  his  old,  faithful  servants.  Adam 
promised  to  have  the  house  guarded.  And  he  now  re- 
quested Juliette  in  case  of  danger  to  bring  his  friend's 
servants  into  the  Prefecture. 

Neither  sleep  nor  rest  was  possible  for  the  Prefet  de 
Police  that  night  :  reports  from  various  parts  of  Paris 
were  coming  in  every  moment. 

Between  seven  and  eight  in  the  morning  Adam  brought 
his  wTife  the  official  newspaper  L'Officiel.  It  contained 
three  items  of  news,  as  little  calculated  as  might  be  to 
calm  the  effervescence  of  the  Parisian  populace.  It 
announced  the  capitulation  of  Metz  and  the  possibility 
of  an  armistice,  and  it  confirmed  what  had  only  been 
rumoured  the  day  before,  the  Prussian  capture  of  Le 
Bourget. 

The  Prefect  went  off  at  once  to  consult  Trochu  as  to 
the  measures  for  controlling  the  manifestation  of  popular 
fury  which  would  be  sure  to  greet  these  disastrous  announce- 
ments. He  found  the  general,  as  usual,  irresolute — one 
moment  proclaiming  that  the  Government  nominated  by 


148  MADAME  ADAM 

public  opinion  must  find  therein  its  only  support,  the 
next  declaring  that  a  hostile  manifestation  must  be  met 
by  a  deployment  of  all  the  forces  at  the  Government's 
disposition.  Determining  to  give  his  own  interpretation 
to  such  contradictory  instructions,  Adam  assembled  twenty 
battalions  of  the  Garde  Nationale  to  defend  the  Hotel  de 
Ville.  Thither  he  himself  went  about  one  o'clock.  Juliette 
did  not  see  him  again  until  six.  Overcome  with  restless- 
ness and  apprehension,  Mme.  Adam  spent  the  afternoon 
with  some  friends  at  Romainville  Fort,  whence  could  be 
seen  the  lost  Le  Bourget.  Returning  through  Belleville 
about  four  o'clock,  they  found  the  suburb  in  a  state  of 
extreme  agitation.  Angry  crowds  thronged  the  streets, 
vociferating  loudly  :  "  We  won't  have  an  armistice.  All 
our  men  must  engage.  Rather  blow  up  Paris  than 
surrender."  x 

Round  the  Hotel  de  Ville  the  crowd  was  so  dense  that 
it  was  impossible  for  the  carriage  to  pass.  Alighting, 
Juliette  mingled  with  the  people  and  asked,  "  What  was 
happening?"  The  replies  she  received  were  so  contra- 
dictory that  she  could  learn  nothing.  From  the  windows 
of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  lists  were  being  thrown  out,  contain- 
ing the  names,  curiously  assorted,  of  those  who  were 
being  proposed  for  the  new  Government  :  on  one  list  were 
Victor  Hugo,  Louis  Blanc,  Ledru-Rollin,  Delescluze;  on 
another,  Blanqui,  Delescluze,  Flourens,  Felix  Peyrat. 
Every  list  contained  the  name  of  Dorian,  an  intimate 
friend  of  the  Adams,  the  highly  popular  and  capable 
Minister  of  Public  Works.  On  one  paper  was  written 
merely  Commune  decretee,  Dorian  president.2  Mingling  in 
that  self-same  crowd  were  other  distinguished  diarists  of 
the  siege  :  Labouchere,  then  Paris  correspondent  for  the 
Daily  News,  and  Edmond  de  Goncourt,  both  of  whom 
observed  that  list-making.  De  Goncourt  saw  workmen  in 
round  hats  inscribing  in  pencil  on  thick  writing-pads  a  list 
which  was  being  dictated  to  them.3  He  caught  the  names 
of  Blanqui,  Flourens,  Ledru-Rollin  and  Motte.  "  That  will 
do  now,"  cried  a  workman  in  a  blouse.  And  de  Goncourt 
next  found  himself  in  a  group  of  women  timorously  talking 
of  the  distribution  of  goods. 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  161. 

2  Labouchere,  A  Resident  besieged  in  Paris,  161. 

3  See  de  Goncourt,  Journal  under  October  31,  1870. 


THE   SIEGE   OF   PARIS  149 

Up  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  already  invaded  by  the  mob, 
were  deliberating,  in  one  room,  the  mayors  of  Paris,  and 
in  another  the  Government  of  National  Defence.1 

Where  was  her  husband  ?  was  naturally  Mine.  Adam's 
chief  concern.  Following  a  company  of  Gardes  Nationaux, 
she  penetrated  through  a  little  side  door  into  the  court- 
yard of  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  There  she  saw  Gustave  Flourens 
on  horseback.  He  was  a  Revolutionist  designated  by  one 
of  the  lists  as  leader  of  the  Commune. 

"  Ce  pauvre  Gustave,  brave  garcon,  mais  un  enfant" 
murmured  at  her  side  a  man  who,  perspiring  freely  and 
breathing  deeply,  like  one  who  had  been  hustled  in  a 
crowd,  seemed  just  to  have  escaped  from  the  riot  upstairs. 

"You  come  from  above,  sir?"  asked  Mme.  Adam. 
"  What  is  going  on  there?  " 

"  Everything  is  for  the  best,  my  little  lady,"  he  replied. 
"  Blanqui  is  proclaimed  Dictator  of  the  Commune." 

Juliette  longed  to  ask  about  her  husband.  But  she 
was  afraid.     She  only  dared  to  inquire — 

"  How  about  Dorian?  " 

'*  What  would  you  have,  madame  ?  He  himself  replied 
to  us,  saying,  '  I  refuse  to  preside  over  the  Commune.  I 
am  no  politician.  I  found  cannon,  and,  in  my  opinion, 
this  is  a  time  when  the  country  stands  more  in  need  of 
cannons  than  of  insurrections  !  '  " 

"  Fine  words,"  exclaimed  Juliette. 

"Yes,  madame;  take  them  away  with  you,"  was  the 
rejoinder. 

Hoping  that  Adam  had  returned  to  the  Prefecture, 
Juliette  made  her  way  home,  but  only  to  find  her  husband 
still  absent.  He  returned,  however,  at  half-past  six.  Only 
a  few  minutes  before,  his  wife  had  heard  from  the  lips  of 
a  friendly  National  Guard  the  news  of  her  husband's 
arrest  and  of  his  escape,  which  he  owed  to  the  good  offices 
of  the  news-bearer.  The  Prefect  had  only  a  few  minutes 
to  stay.  His  wife  spoke  of  dinner.  He  would  not  hear 
of  it.  He  had  come  to  take  measures  for  the  defence  of 
the  Prefecture.  Those  measures  the  events  of  that  black, 
starless  night  proved  to  be  only  too  necessary.2 

But  they  must  be  read  in  Mme.  Adam's  Souvenirs  ;  for 

1  A  vivid  description  of  the  proceedings  inside  the  Hotel  de  Ville  is 
given  by  Labouchere,  op.  cit. 

2  Souvenirs,  IV.  167-87. 


150  MADAME   ADAM 

the  limits  of  this  volume  require  us  to  pass  over  them 
and  to  hasten  on  to  record  briefly  the  agreement  which, 
by  the  intervention  of  Adam  and  his  friend  Dorian,  was 
arrived  at  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning.  Standing 
in  a  narrow  staircase  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  with  the  angry 
riflemen  of  the  Commune  above  him,  and  the  treacherous 
National  Guards  below,  the  Prefect  conducted  a  parley. 
This  intervention,  seconded  by  the  negotiations  which 
Dorian  in  an  upper  room  was  carrying  on  between  the 
Government  and  the  Revolutionists,  resulted  in  the  signing 
of  a  convention. 

By  this  agreement *  the  Government  promised  three 
things  :  first,  to  hold  municipal  elections  on  the  following 
day;  second,  political  elections  on  the  day  after;  third, 
not  to  prosecute  the  leaders  of  the  insurrection. 

After  the  signing  of  this  agreement,  Adam,  having,  with 
considerable  difficulty,  secured  the  evacuation  of  the 
Hotel  de  Ville  by  the  invaders  and  the  re-establishment  of 
order,  returned  to  the  Prefecture  at  half-past  five  on  the 
morning  of  November  1st. 

Barely  had  the  Prefect  thrown  himself  on  his  bed  and 
begun  to  enjoy  the  sleep  which  for  two  nights  had  been 
denied  him,  when  his  wife,  who  was  writing  in  the  adjoin- 
ing room,  heard  her  husband's  bedroom  door  violently 
opened.  This  early  morning  visitor  was  a  member  of  the 
Government,  M.  Picard,  who  came  to  demand  the  arrest 
of  the  rebel  leaders.  Picard  and  certain  of  his  colleagues, 
who  had  contrived  to  escape  from  the  besieged  Hotel  de 
Ville,  and  who  were,  therefore,  absent  at  the  time  of  the 
Convention's  signing,  refused  to  hold  themselves  respon- 
sible for  it.  Adam,  however,  rather  than  break  his  pledged 
word,  sent  in  his  resignation.  Negotiations  continued 
throughout  the  day.  The  Prefect  was  implored  to  recon- 
sider his  decision ;  but  he  was  deaf  to  all  entreaties.  His 
wife,  who  was  lunching  with  Mme.  Dorian  when  she  first 
heard  the  news  of  her  husband's  resignation,  thoroughly 
approved  of  his  action,  deploring  the  treachery  of  the 
Government  and  its  inevitably  disastrous  effect  upon  the 
people. 

1  The  Revolutionists  were  discontented  with  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment's regulation  of  municipal  affairs.  After  the  4th  of  September  the 
twenty  mayors  of  Paris  had  been  appointed  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
Gambetta,  and  the  Chief  Mayor,  Etienne  Arago. 


THE   SIEGE   OF   PARIS  151 

The  question  arose  as  to  what  should  be  the  attitude 
of  Dorian  himself.  He,  as  well  as  Adam,  had  undertaken 
that  the  leaders  of  the  insurrection  should  go  free.  He, 
like  Adam,  was  a  man  of  unimpeachable  honour.  But 
his  position  was  somewhat  different.  As  Minister  of  Public 
Works  he  was  entrusted  with  the  all-important  task  of 
providing  with  munitions  the  army  defending  Paris.  In 
his  exercise  of  this  function  he  had  displayed  marvellous 
ingenuity,  energy  and  organising  power.  He  had  trans- 
formed the  goldsmiths  of  Paris  into  engineers.  He  had 
commandeered  every  possible  assistance.  He  had  seemed 
to  create  guns  out  of  nothing.1 

"  Twenty  thousand  shells  are  to-day  being  turned  out," 
wrote  Mine.  Adam,  "  in  a  city  where,  according  to  the 
Ministry  of  War,  all  the  materials  for  munitions  were 
exhausted." 

Here  was  Dorian,  the  right  man  in  the  right  place  :  a 
minister  who,  if  his  colleagues  had  only  possessed  half  his 
brains  and  energy,  might  possibly  have  saved  Paris. 
What  was  he  to  do?  His  dignity  dictated  resignation. 
But  though  modesty  itself,  he  was  not  blind  to  his  own 
worth.  He  knew  what  he  and  he  alone  could  do  for  his 
country,  and  for  the  country  he  cared  far  more  than  for 
his  personal  dignity.  That  day  at  lunch  his  wife,  his  son, 
and  his  beautiful  daughter,  Aline  Dorian,  one  of  the  most 
ardent  of  patriots,  and  his  daughter's  husband,  Paul 
Menard,  all  entreated  him  to  resign.2  With  tears  in  his 
eyes  and  without  the  slightest  hesitation,  he  replied : 
"  When  I  left  my  home  and  my  foundries  to  come  to 
Paris,  I  was  prepared  for  every  sacrifice.  When  I  con- 
sented to  enter  the  Government  of  Defence,  I  vowed  to 
the  Republic's  service  my  fortune,  my  life,  and  yours, 
Menard,  and  yours,  Charles.  You  tell  me  that  I  ought 
to  reserve  my  honour.  I  do  not  consider  that  my  honour 
is  in  question.  Rather  it  is  the  honour  of  others  which 
is  at  stake.  It  is  my  dignity  that  is  attacked.  I  feel  it. 
Nevertheless  I  will  go  so  far  as  to  make  that  sacrifice. 
I  have  carved  out  my  own  part  in  the  national  task  which 

1  See  Jules  Favre,  Gouvernement  de  la  Defense  Nationale,  I.  300.  "  M. 
Dorian  deploya  la  plus  louable  acliviU  pour  obtenir  de  prompts  resultats. 
Cet  excellent  el  digne  citoyen  .  .  .  etait  a  ce  moment  entoure  d'une  immense 
popularite.  .  .  .  II  semblait  personnifier  la  dejense.^ 

2  Souvenirs,  IV.  193. 


152  MADAME   ADAM 

we  are  all  performing.  I  found  cannon.  If  I  ceased  to 
do  so,  then  I  am  persuaded  not  another  cannon,  not  a 
single  bullet  more  would  be  manufactured." 

Dorian  continued  in  office.  Adam,  as  we  have  said, 
resigned;  and  after  three  weeks'  residence  in  her  prison 
house,  Juliette  awoke  on  the  morning  of  the  3rd  of  Novem- 
ber to  find  herself  back  again  in  her  "  dovecot "  of  the 
Boulevard  Poissonniere. 

One  of  the  privations  of  her  sojourn  across  the  water 
had  been  that  she  saw  less  of  her  friends.  The  Rue  de 
Jerusalem  was  too  far  out  of  their  beat.  Now,  sauntering 
along  the  boulevard,  coming  away  from  dinner  at  Brebant's 
opposite,  the  Adams'  friends  had  only  to  climb  their 
staircase  on  Wednesday  or  Friday  evenings  to  find  them 
at  home  and  surrounded  by  interesting  friends.  Of  this 
restored  privilege  the  former  frequenters  of  Mme.  Adam's 
salon  were  not  slow  to  avail  themselves.  "  Ah  !  que  le 
salon  du  Boulevard  Poissonniere  est  autrement  frequente 
que  celiii  de  la  Prefecture,'"  exclaims  Juliette.  On  the 
8th  of  November  she  writes  :  "  This  evening  we  have  the 
whole  Dorian  family,  for  whom  our  friendship  increases 
every  day,  also  Eugene  Pelletan,  Rochefort,  who  had 
resigned  after  the  31st  of  October,  Chenevard  and  Louis 
Blanc." 

As  the  siege  dragged  on  and  viands  grew  scarcer  and 
scarcer,  Mme.  Adam  was  often  hard  put  to  it  to  provide 
dinners  for  her  guests.  They  were  diners  de  guerre,  which, 
of  course,  means  guere  de  diner. 

"  I  invited  our  friends  to  dinner,"  writes  Mme.  Adam 
on  the  23rd  of  December.  "  But  our  dinners  are  now 
veritable  picnics."  Jourdan,  a  well-known  journalist, 
provided  the  butter,  Peyrat  the  last  box  of  Albert  plums 
in  Paris,  another  guest  a  little  box  of  kidney  beans,  yet 
another  had  sent  the  joint — it  was  part  of  an  interesting 
cow  which  for  two  months  had  been  stabled  in  a  salon. 
A  few  weeks  later  such  a  luxury  as  beef  became  quite 
unknown.  Juliette  for  her  New  Year's  dinner-party  con- 
sidered herself  lucky  to  be  able  to  put  before  her  friends  a 
joint  of  elephant.  It  was  part  of  the  famous  Castor  from 
the  Jardins  d' Acclimation.  The  trunk  of  Castor's  twin, 
Pollux,  which  an  English  butcher  of  the  Boulevard  Hauss- 
man  had  temptingly  displayed  in  a  setting  of  camel  kidneys, 
helped  to  furnish  forth  the  war  dinner-tables  of  Labou- 


THE   SIEGE   OF   PARIS  153 

chere  and  Edmond  de  Goncourt.  The  Daily  News  corre- 
spondent found  it  tough  and  oily,  ime  piece  de  risislance, 
but  not  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  term. 

The  sufferings  of  the  rich,  however,  were  as  nothing 
compared  with  those  of  the  poor.  They  were  aggravated 
by  the  severity  of  the  winter  and  the  scarcity  of  fuel. 
Guards  on  the  Paris  ramparts  were  found  frozen  stiff.1 
Well-dressed  women  were  to  be  seen  carrying  bundles  of 
faggots  along  the  street,  or  bearing  home  in  triumph  the 
hoop  of  a  cask. 

Walking  along  the  Rue  St.  Honore,  Juliette  was  terrified 
to  see  a  man  fall  down  before  her;  he  had  fainted,  and 
was  on  the  point  of  dying  of  starvation.  Mmc.  Adam 
learned  that  he  was  a  whipmaker,  whose  occupation  had 
forsaken  him  at  a  time  when  carriage-horses  fetched  a 
high  price  as  a  table  delicacy.  That  day  Juliette  became 
possessed  of  a  stock  of  whips  large  enough  to  furnish 
forth  all  the  chariots  of  the  Olympic  Festival. 

"  When  my  portion  of  horseflesh  is  tough,"  she  writes,2 
"  I  try  to  console  myself  with  the  thought  that  it  is  part 
of  one  of  those  poor  skeletons  I  used  to  see  beaten  almost 
to  death  along  the  streets.  When  the  meat  is  fat  and 
tender  I  am  always  afraid  it  comes  from  one  of  those 
fine  dapple  greys  belonging  to  the  Western  Railway  Line, 
which  you,  Alice,  loved  to  watch  ascending  the  slight 
incline  of  the  Boulevard  Poissonniere." 

The  fortitude  writh  which  all  classes  in  Paris  endured 
the  hardships  of  the  siege  Juliette  is  never  tired  of  extol- 
ling. "  Not  a  woman  complains,"  she  writes.  "  The  pre- 
vailing idea  is  devotion  to  la  patrie.  Cest  une  si  grande 
chose  que  la  patrie  quand  on  y  pense,"  exclaimed  a  working 
man  whom  she  met  in  the  street. 

Of  course  there  were  ugly  scenes  :  ferocity  resulting  from 
the  pangs  of  hunger,  wild  lawlessness  arising  from  the 
relaxation  of  the  bonds  of  family  discipline  in  a  time  of 
so  much  distress.  Juliette,  with  an  idealist's  determina- 
tion in  an  hour  of  heroic  struggle  to  see  only  what  is  best 
in  her  fellow-men,  passes  lightly  over  such  incidents, 
leaving  them  for  de  Goncourt's  more  realistic  pen.  She 
was  even  prepared  to  condone  drunkenness,  because  it 
frequently  arose  from  scarcity  of  food.3     Nevertheless,  she 

1  De  Goncourt,  Journal,  December  1870. 

2  Souvenirs,  IV.  273.  3  Ibid.,  129. 


154  MADAME   ADAM 

cannot  refrain  from  remonstrating  with  an  intoxicated 
National  Guard.  "  I  cannot  bear  to  see  a  citizen  of  the 
Republic  drunk,"  she  exclaimed.  "  The  Republic  !  .  .  . 
a  citizen  !  .  .  .  no,  I  will  never  get  tipsy  again,"  hiccuped 
the  drunkard.1 

The  artists,  the  actors  and  actresses  of  Paris  were 
among  those  who  laboured  hardest  at  doing  their  bit. 
"  You  would  expect  it  of  them,"  writes  Mme.  Adam. 
They  had  been  so  far  from  becoming  Buonapartiste.  And 
she  relates  how  Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt,  who  had  organised 
a  hospital  in  the  Odeon  Theatre,  se  conduit  en  femme  de 
grand  coeur. 

Juliette  herself,  by  her  untiring  efforts  to  alleviate 
distress,  won  for  herself  the  title  of  Notre  Dame  de  Bon 
Secours.  Besides  having  billeted  on  her  three  recruits 
from  Auvergne,  she  nursed  back  to  health  in  her  flat  a 
wounded  convalescent  soldier,  and  later,  during  the  bom- 
bardment, she  gave  harbourage  to  a  poor  girl  who  had 
fled  in  panic  from  the  outskirts  of  the  city. 

Much  of  Mme.  Adam's  time  was  occupied  in  organising 
and  directing  two  societies,  VCEuvre  des  Foumeaux,  which 
provided  the  poor  with  cheap  meals,  and  VCEuvre  du 
Travail  des  Femmes,  destined  to  help  poor  sempstresses 
by  enabling  them  to  possess  sewing-machines  of  their 
own. 

With  amazing  endurance,  though  racked  by  her  old 
enemies  neuralgia  and  rheumatism,  Mme.  Adam  kept  up 
her  energy  and  her  spirits.  For  nine  years  she  had  been 
accustomed  to  spend  the  winter  in  the  south.  In  November 
1870  she  had  written  :  "In  normal  days  we  should  now 
be  preparing  to  go  to  Bruyeres."  But,  alas !  for  her 
there  was  to  be  no  southern  sunshine  that  winter.  Such 
a  deprivation  alone  could  naturally  not  fail  to  tell  upon 
her  health.  Then  came,  on  the  2nd  of  December,  the 
terrible  disappointment  of  Champigny,  the  sortie  which 
had  raised  so  many  hopes  only  to  dash  them  to  the  ground. 
But  it  was  not  until  January  that  Juliette  was  driven  to 
admit  to  herself  that  she  was  ill  and  must  stay  in  bed. 
The  bombardment  of  Paris  had  begun  on  the  6th  of 
January.     It  continued  for  a  nightmare  of  three  weeks. 

As  early  as  the  7th  of  November,  Nefftzer,  at  no  time 
a  prophet  of  smooth  things,  had  foretold  the  bombard- 
1  Souvenirs,  IV.  119. 


THE   SIEGE   OF   PARIS  155 

ment.     He  predicted  that  bombs  might  fall  even  on  the 
centre  of  Paris,  probably  on  the  Institute. 

"  Am  I  afraid?  "  Juliette  had  written  in  her  diary  under 
that  date. 

"  Well,  no.  Why  should  I  fear  a  bombardment  ?  The 
quarters  not  struck  and  not  likely  to  be  must  receive  the 
unfortunate  inhabitants  of  those  that  are.  As  for  the 
houses  !  By  my  faith  !  so  much  the  worse  for  them  ! 
I  would  willingly  sacrifice  my  own  and  a  hundred  others 
if  it  would  enable  us  to  hold  out  two  days  longer."  1 

The  bombardment  was  less  imminent  than  the  editor 
of  the  Temps  had  thought.  When  it  began  on  the  6th  of 
January,  it  took  the  Parisians  by  surprise.  The  invaders, 
with  a  disregard  of  international  law  to  which  we  in  these 
latter  days  have  grown  accustomed,  omitted  to  give  the 
usual  warning.  "  Oh,  the  barbarians,"  cries  Juliette. 
"  More  than  three  thousand  bombs  have  fallen  round  the 
Jardin  des  Plantes  and  the  Luxembourg.  .  .  .  Several 
persons  have  been  killed  in  their  beds.  .  .  .  Many  flew 
into  a  panic,  and,  instead  of  seeking  refuge  in  cellars, 
rushed  out  into  the  streets,  where  they  were  killed."  2 

Nevertheless,  the  courage  of  the  Parisians  did  not 
waver.  ..."  If  the  European  capitals,"  writes  Mme. 
Adam,  "  ask  how  Paris,  the  gay,  the  light-hearted,  the 
witty,  takes  this  bombardment,  let  them  know  Paris  is  proud 
to  be  bombarded  !  Let  them  look  at  her,  let  them  behold 
her  calm,  courageous,  and  let  them  try  to  emulate  her."  3 

Experts  pronounced  the  bombardment  to  be  unheard-of 
in  its  violence  and  fury.  The  Prussians  appeared  to  be 
using  up  all  their  siege  ammunitions  in  this  final  coup. 
Forty  thousand  kilogrammes  of  powder  were  said  to  have 
been  fired  on  the  plateau  of  Avron  alone.  The  noise  was 
infernal.  The  tumult  and  the  cold  together  were  mad- 
dening. "  Impossible,"  wrote  Mme.  Adam  after  an  interval 
of  a  week,  "  to  sleep,  to  rest  even  for  a  moment.  Parisians 
have  not  slept  for  ten  days.  The  bombardment  is  fearful. 
How  glad  I  am  that  I  sent  my  daughter  away  !  " 

A  gleam  of  hope  came  to  the  besieged  when,  on  the 
18th  of  January,  another  attempt  was  made  at  a  sortie, 
and  when,  on  the  following  day,  came  the  news  that  all 
was  going  well,  that  Montretout  had  been  taken,  that 
the  Prussians  had  been  everywhere  repulsed. 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  210.  2  Ibid.,  303.  3  Ibid.,1306. 


156  MADAME   ADAM 

"  All  Paris  at  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  was  out  on 
the  boulevards  and  in  the  Champs  Elysees.  The  Garde 
Nationale  was  said  to  be  fighting  magnificently,  and  already 
to  have  entered  the  Buzenval  Park.  Then  suddenly  the 
appearance  of  a  startling  placard  cast  down  from  the 
heights  of  sanguine  anticipation  into  the  depths  of  black 
despair  the  spirits  of  that  hopeful  and  expectant  crowd. 
Trochu  announced  that  the  attack  had  been  abandoned. 
Instead  of  declaring  a  victory  he  referred  to  an  armistice, 
and  demanded  that  every  cab  remaining  in  Paris  should 
be  sent  out  to  bring  in  the  wounded.  Groans  escaped 
from  every  breast. 

"  Another  enterprise,  elaborately  prepared,  inefficiently 
executed,  miserably  terminated,"  exclaims  Mme.  Adam. 
Indeed,  an  identical  description  might  be  given  of  every 
sortie  since  the  opening  of  the  siege. 

The  talk  of  capitulation  which  now  began  to  circulate 
was  unendurable  to  Juliette  and  to  those  who,  like  her, 
had  come  to  be  nicknamed  les  a  VOutrance  (to  the  bitter 
end).  "  Never,"  she  writes,  "  during  all  the  cruellest 
trials  of  these  last  months,  have  I  suffered  more  than  at 
this  moment."  1 

All  Paris  and  the  twenty  mayors  of  Paris  and  the  Garde 
Nationale  were  of  Mme.  Adam's  way  of  thinking  :  they 
also  were  les  a  VOutrance  ;  they  preferred  death  to  sur- 
render. "  If  the  Prussians  dare  to  defile  down  our 
boulevards,"  writes  Juliette,  "  I  believe  we  shall  do  as 
the  Russians  did  in  Moscow.  .  .  .  Death  is  twenty  times 
less  cruel  than  the  degradation  of  la  patriey  2 

The  Paris  mayors,  convoked  by  the  Government  to 
receive  the  announcement  that  further  resistance  was 
impossible,  declared  they  were  ready  to  die.  They  pre- 
ferred the  horrors  of  famine  to  the  humiliation  of  surrender.3 

Many  of  the  terrors  of  famine  the  Parisians  had  already 
endured.  They  had  already  suffered  the  pangs  of  hunger. 
But  those  that  awaited  them,  should  this  heroic  recom- 
mendation be  adopted,  would  be  unspeakably  more  hor- 
rible. "  The  men  who  speak  thus,"  wrote  Favre  in  his 
last  dispatch  to  Gambetta,4  "  still  eat.  They  endure 
misery ;  but  they  do  just  contrive  to  maintain  life.  On 
the  day,  and  that  day  is  imminent,  when  they  have  nothing 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  315.  2  Ibid.,  324. 

3  Favre,  of.  cit.,  III.  342.  *  Ibid.,  345. 


THE   SIEGE   OF   PARIS  157 

but  horseflesh,  not  even  bread,  the  death-rate,  now  terribly 
high,  will  become  too  horrible." 

On  the  21st  of  January  one  of  the  Adams'  friends 
announced  in  their  salon  that  the  food  in  Paris  could  not 
hold  out  for  longer  than  two  days.  That  was  an  exag- 
geration. Juliette  maintained  that  it  could  last  for 
fifteen.  Jules  Favre  informed  Gambetta  that  it  might 
be  made  to  suffice  for  ten.1 

Had  there  been  any  chance  of  the  capital's  deliverance 
by  one  of  the  armies  which  Gambetta  had  been  organis- 
ing in  the  provinces,  then  the  Government  might  have 
been  justified  in  holding  out  a  few  days  longer,  but  the 
last  hope  of  such  a  deliverance  had  faded  when  General 
Chanzy  had  been  defeated  on  the  11th. 

Nevertheless  Juliette,  dragging  herself  from  her  sick- 
bed out  into  the  bitter  January  cold,  spent  the  21st  visit- 
ing first  one,  than  another,  in  the  forlorn  hope  of  inspiring 
some  concerted  anti-surrender  movement. 

"  I  have  passed  a  horrible  night,"  she  wrote  on  the 
24th,  "  obsessed  by  hallucinations.  The  Republic,  our 
France,  taking  to  itself  form  and  visage,  appeared  and 
spoke  to  me,  called  me.  .  .  ."  2 

"  The  Officiel  this  morning  insults  our  grief.  What  ! 
Our  hearts  are  bleeding  !  .  .  .  the  whole  population  of 
Paris  is  in  despair,  in  tears  !  .  .  .  And  yet  not  a  word, 
not  a  groan,  not  a  cry  escapes  from  the  breasts  of  those 
who  govern  us.  Would  not  M.  Picard  3  and  M.  Vinoy  4 
permit  it?  " 

The  armistice  involving  the  surrender  of  Paris  was  signed 
on  the  28th  of  January.  The  bombardment  had  ceased 
on  the  26th.  "  Would  that  I  could  die  at  this  hour," 
wrote  Mme.  Adam.5 

1  Favre,  op.  cit.,  III.  347.  2  Souvenirs,  IV.  324. 

3  Minister  of  Finance.     See  ante,  140. 

4  Trochu,  who  had  resigned  after  Buzenval,  had  been  succeeded  as 
Governor  of  Paris  by  General  Vinoy. 

6  Mme.  Adam  dates  the  signing  of  the  armistice  on  the  26th,  the  day 
when  firing  ceased.  But  by  an  arrangement  between  Favre  and  Bismarck 
the  bombardment  closed  two  days  before  the  signing  of  the  capitulation. 
See  Jules  Favre,  Gouvernement  de  la  Defense  Nationale,  II.  403. 


CHAPTER   XII 

THE    COMMUNE 

1871 

"  Cette  Commune  qui  venait  de  faire  sombrer  le  Paris  heroique  dans  le  Paris 
sanglant  et  incendiaire." — Mme.  Adam,  Souvenirs. 

"  In  each  human  heart  terror  survives 
The  ravin  it  has  gorged." — Shelley,  Prometheus. 

For  five  months  France  had  been  ruled  by  an  oligarchy. 
The  ministers  who  took  office  on  the  4th  of  September  were 
responsible  to  no  parliament.  No  legislative  body  had 
succeeded  the  Corps  Legislatif,  the  members  of  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  had  unceremoniously  quitted  the  Palais 
Bourbon  on  that  autumn  Sunday  which  saw  the  birth  of  the 
Government  of  National  Defence. 

But  now  at  the  conqueror's  bidding  there  was  to  be  a 
National  Assembly.  A  clause  in  the  Capitulation  of  Paris 
stipulated  for  its  election.  Accordingly,  throughout  France, 
even  in  the  departments  occupied  by  the  enemy,  elections 
were  held  on  the  8th  of  February.  They  resulted  in  the 
return  to  "  Bismarck's  Parliament,"  as  Mme.  Adam  called 
the  National  Assembly  which  on  the  12th  of  February  met  at 
Bordeaux,  of  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  republicans — 
radicals  and  moderates  being  almost  equal  —  of  about 
four  hundred  and  fifty  monarchical  conservatives,  legiti- 
mists and  Orleanists  being  about  equal,  and  finally  of  thirty 
Buonapartists.1 

"  The  final  result  of  the  elections,"  writes  Mme.  Adam,2 
"  is  heartrending.  The  majority  is  reactionary,  nominated 
in  order  to  make  peace.  Country  gentlemen  and  capitu- 
lards  will  vote  it.     It  is  the  chamber  Bismarck  desired.     He 

1  M.  Gabriel  Hanotaux's  numbers  are  slightly  different;  but  the  main 
point  is  that  a  substantial  balance  remained  on  the  side  of  the  Monarchists. 
See  Histoire  de  la  France  Contemporaine,  I.  39. 

2  Souvenirs,  V.  23. 

158 


THE   COMMUNE  159 

assisted  at  its  nomination.  He  presided  over  the  elections. 
In  certain  towns  did  not  the  Prussians  themselves  distribute 
the  voting  papers  on  behalf  of  the  reactionary  candidates  ? 
Bismarck  is  determined  that  the  war  shall  end.  Germany 
has  had  enough  of  it.  .  .  .  Coblentz  has  returned  under 
another  form.  Only  now  it  is  at  home  and  not  abroad  that 
Frenchmen  have  made  a  compact  with  the  enemy.  Old 
valiant  France  is  dying,  is  dead." 

Mine.  Adam  was  now  at  Bruyeres.  Her  husband  had 
been  nominated  as  candidate  for  a  Paris  constituency  and 
for  Les  Alpes  Maritimes.  Contrary  to  his  wife's  advice 
he  had  insisted  on  leaving  his  Paris  election  to  look  after 
itself  while  he  went  to  Nice.  He  had  started  on  the  2nd 
of  February,  leaving  Juliette,  as  she  pathetically  puts  it, 
en  tete-a-tete,  avec  la  pensSe  de  ma  pauvre  chere  France 
vaincue,  mutilee,  broyee.1 

A  few  days  after  her  husband's  departure,  to  her  grief 
and  loneliness  was  suddenly  added  the  most  agonising 
apprehension.  She  read  in  the  newspaper  that  her  hus- 
band's train  carrying  twenty  thousand  kilos  of  gunpowder 
had  been  blown  up.  Hastily  gathering  together  a  few 
valuables,  which,  considering  the  disordered  state  of  the 
capital,  she  dare  not  leave  in  Paris,  she  was  about  to  start 
for  the  south,  when  a  friend  arrived  with  the  welcome  news 
that  her  husband  was  alive  though  seriously  injured.  A 
few  hours  later,  accompanied  by  her  dear  little  friend  Bibi, 
Rochfort's  eight-year-old  son,  who  was  staying  with  her  at 
the  time,  Mme.  Adam  was  in  the  train.  The  journey  was 
terrible.  Constantly  she  was  confronted  with  Prussian 
soldiers,  who  insisted  on  seeing  her  papers.  "  lis  me  de- 
mandent  a"un  ton  rude  mon  laissez-passer.  Celui  qui  me 
le  rend  touche  ma  main.  Je  frissonne  comme  au  contact 
d'une  bete  venimeuse"  2  she  writes. 

Arrived  at  Cannes,  she  is  disappointed  to  find  instead  of 
Adam  at  the  station  a  note  brought  by  the  coachman, 
explaining  that  her  husband's  electoral  duties  detained  him 
at  Nice,  but  that  he  will  be  home  for  dinner.  This  disap- 
pointment, at  the  end  of  a  long,  fatiguing  journey,  exas- 
perated her.  "  I  would  have  gone  back  to  Paris  at  once  if 
I  could,"  she  writes. 

And  Adam,  when  he  returned,  was  treated  to  one  of  those 
drames  de  famille  which  Juliette  herself  had  so  often  wit- 
1  Souvenirs,  IV.  341.  *  Ibid.,  V.  5. 


160  MADAME   ADAM 

nessed  in  her  youth.  The  scene,  as  Mme.  Adam  describes 
it  in  her  Souvenirs,  might  strike  the  reader  as  somewhat 
brutal.  But  one  must  read  between  the  lines,  and  re- 
member Juliette's  overwrought  condition.  Then  it  is 
easy  to  see  how  it  came  about ;  how  at  that  moment  the 
sight  of  Adam's  poor  scarred  face,  recalling  how  he  had  been 
on  the  brink  of  death,  would  make  his  wife  furious  to  think 
of  his  disregard  of  her  entreaties  and  his  persistence  in 
undertaking  that  disastrous  journey. 

"  How  could  you  have  gone  off  like  that,  leaving  me  the 
sole  guardian  of  our  fortune  ?  "  she  cried.  "  Why  must  you 
insist  on  pursuing  this  visionary  Nice  candidature,  risking 
failure  in  Paris,  where,  but  for  me  and  Rochefort,  you  would 
never  have  been  elected  ?  "  Fortunately  Adam  thoroughly 
understood  his  wife.  Realising  the  strain  already  put  upon 
her  nerves,  he  indulged  in  no  self-justification,  but  assumed 
the  only  possible  attitude — one  of  lamb-like  submission. 
Nevertheless,  her  agitation  distressed  him,  and  two  big 
tears  coursed  slowly  down  his  lacerated  face. 

"  I  am  in  favour  of  his  being  pardoned,"  sententiously 
pronounced  the  comical  little  Bibi.  Bibi's  advice  was 
taken;  and  ""nous  dinons  appaises,"  writes  Mme.  Adam. 
After  dinner  her  husband  told  the  story  of  his  miraculous 
escape.1 

In  a  few  days  when  his  wounds  had  somewhat  healed 
he  left  for  Bordeaux.  There  the  Assembly  had  already 
held  its  first  meeting.  Its  initial  act  had  been  to  nominate 
Thiers  President  of  the  Republic,  or,  to  be  more  exact, 
chef  du  pouvoir  executif  de  la  Repabligue  Frangaise.  In 
spite  of  his  three-and-seventy  years  le  petit  bourgeois  was 
still  in  the  perfection  of  health  and  vigour.  He  could  still 
say  to  the  friends  who  gathered  round  him  :  Cest  nous 
qui  sommes  encore  les  jeunes  aujourd'hui."  Chateaubriand 
used  to  call  Thiers  the  "  heir  of  the  future  "  {Vheritier  de 
Vavenir).  That  future  had  now  arrived.  During  his  retire- 
ment from  public  affairs  in  the  early  days  of  the  Empire  it 
had  been  prophesied  of  him  that  only  a  great  national 
disaster  would  draw  him  from  his  obscurity.  Now  that 
the  disaster  had  occurred,  everyone  turned  to  le  petit  grand 
homme  as  the  only  man  in  France  capable  of  confronting 
Bismarck  and  facing  all  the  growing  difficulties  of  an 
almost  desperate  situation.  It  was  to  those  difficulties 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  12,  13. 


THE  COMMUNE  161 

that  the  third  Republic  owed  its  proclamation.  For  at 
first  sight  it  seems  incredible  that  an  assembly  in  which 
monarchists  had  a  substantial  majority  should  decree  a 
Republic.  But  neither  legitimists  nor  Orleanists  desired  to 
assume  the  terrible  responsibilities  which  would  obviously 
devolve  on  the  new  ministers  :  to  restore  the  monarchy 
under  such  circumstances,  when  the  new  king's  first  act 
would  be  to  sign  the  dismemberment  of  France,  would  be  to 
discredit  for  ever  the  monarchical  regime. 

Thiers,  though  holding  himself  aloof  from  all  parties  and 
adopting  no  label  save  one,  "La  France,"  was  said  to  have 
Orleanist  leanings.  That  is  probable.  Nevertheless,  he 
realised  that  only  a  republic  was  feasible,  because,  as  he 
said,  "  it  is  the  form  of  government  which  divides  us  least."  x 

Mine.  Adam,  although  at  this  time  of  her  life  she  was 
no  admirer  of  Thiers,  refrains  from  inveighing  against  the 
presidency  of  her  husband's  friend.  She  felt  under  no  such 
constraint,  however,  with  regard  to  the  chief  ministers  of 
his  cabinet :  Jules  Favre,  who  continued  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  and  Ernest  Picard,  Minister  of  the  Interior.  "  Deux 
clairvoyances,  deux  competences  rares  .  .  .  comme  insuffis- 
ance,"  2  she  writes.  She  knew  them  both  well.  They  were 
both  habitues  of  her  salon.  She  could  never  forgive 
Favre  for  having  negotiated  the  capitulation  of  Paris. 
And  she  is  not  alone  in  censoring  the  terms  of  that  sur- 
render. Neither  our  Ambassador  in  Paris,  Lord  Lyons, 
nor  Labouchere,3  had  a  high  opinion  of  Favre's  diplomatic 
gifts.  '*  He  is  too  much  led  away  by  his  feelings,"  wrote 
Lord  Lyons  to  Lord  Granville.4  "  He  is  essentially  an 
orator  rather  than  a  statesman,"  was  Labouchere's  opinion. 
"  When  he  went  to  meet  Bismarck  at  Ferrieres  he  was 
fully  prepared  to  agree  to  the  fortresses  in  Alsace  and 
Lorraine  being  rased;  but,  when  he  returned,  the  phrase 
ni  un  police  du  territoire,  ni  une  pierre  des  fortresses  occurred 
to  him,  and  he  could  not  refrain  from  complicating  the 
situation    by    publishing    it."  5     M.    Gabriel    Hanotaux 6 

1  Hanotaux,  op.  cit.,  I.  64  et  passim. 

2  Souvenirs,  V.  25. 

3  Hanotaux,  op.  cit.,  I.  105,  does  not  hesitate  to  condemn  Favre'a 
conduct  of  these  negotiations. 

*  From  Bordeaux,  on  December  26,  1870.  He  repeats  this  judgment 
on  February  16,  1871.     See  Life  of  Lord  Lyons,  by  Lord  Newton. 

B  Labouchere,  The  Besieged  Resident  in  Paris. 

•  Histoire  Contemporaine,  I.  87. 

M 


162  MADAME   ADAM 

marvels  to  think  how  a  man  whose  intelligence  was  so 
mediocre,  whose  character  was  so  weak,  could  ever  have 
risen  to  a  position  of  such  authority. 

The  historian  of  contemporary  France  also  shares  Mme. 
Adam's  opinion  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  Picard. 
"  Bourgeois  de  Paris,  homme  gras  et  de  teint  fleuri,  orateur 
elegant  et  fin,  esprit  sceptique  et  depris,  il  savait  trouver  de  mots 
heureux"  is  M.  Hanotaux's  description  of  the  new  Home 
Secretary.1  "  11  ne  vise  quaux  mots  d' esprit,"  2  writes  Mme. 
Adam. 

Jules  Grevy,  the  eminent  lawyer,  who  was  now  President 
of  the  New  Chamber,  had  in  the  days  of  her  matrimonial 
difficulties  been  Juliette's  guide,  counsellor  and  friend, 
placing  at  her  disposal  all  that  sagesse  ponderee,  that 
finesse  matoise,3  with  which  this  ideal  bourgeois  was  so 
plentifully  endowed.  When  she  had  first  met  him  in  Mme. 
d'Agoult's  salon,  Grevy,  like  herself,  was  a  republican 
abstentioniste,  detached  from  any  participation  in  the 
hated  imperial  regime.  Mme.  Adam  had  never  forgiven 
him  for  abandoning  that  position,  for  yielding  to  Ollivier's 
persuasions  and  entering  the  Corps  Legislatif  as  one  of  the 
famous  "  five,"  the  first  republicans  to  take  the  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  Empire.  "  For  me,  henceforth,"  she 
said  to  Adam,  "  Grevy  is  no  longer  a  man  whose  political 
honour  is  intact."  4 

These  various  appointments  and  other  news  sent  by 
Adam  from  Bordeaux,  his  wife  at  Bruyeres  discussed  at 
length  with  Thiers'  old  friend,  her  neighbour,  Dr.  Maure, 
and  with  M.  and  Mme.  Aries  Dufour,  who  had  come 
to  cheer  her  loneliness.  Her  mornings  were  spent  in 
teaching  her  young  friend  Bibi.  But  all  the  while  her 
heart  was  rent  by  maternal  as  well  as  national  anxiety. 
For  weeks  she  had  had  no  news  of  Alice. 

"All  my  friends  speak  of  my  daughter,"  she  writes; 
"  she  will  soon  be  with  you,  they  assure  me.  And  the  days 
and  the  hours  pass,  and  silence,  horrible  silence,  weighs 
upon  me,  broken  only  by  the  wailings  of  my  patriotic 
grief." 

On  Sunday,  the  26th  of  February,  Thiers  and  Jules 
Favre  had  signed  the  preliminaries  of  peace  at  Versailles. 
The  next  morning,   as  Mme.  Adam  was  giving  Bibi  his 

1  Op.  cit.,  I.  89.  2  Souvenirs,  III.  44. 

3  Hanotaux,  op.  cit.,  60.  4  Souvenirs,  III.  365. 


THE   COMMUNE  163 

geography  lesson,  she  wept  to  see  lying  before  her  the  map 
of  France,  the  tangible  image  of  her  adored  and  mutilated 
patrie. 

"  Why  are  you  crying  ?"  asked  Bibi.  He  also  cried  when 
he  heard  the  reason,  and  said  :  "  They  are  taking  from  us 
the  heart  of  France." 

Adam  wrote  briefly  announcing  the  terms  of  the  treaty. 
"  Vae  victis  !  I  send  you  the  text  of  the  treaty  which  M. 
de  Bismarck  has  dictated.  '  Session  of  the  whole  of  Alsace, 
except  Belfort.  Session  of  a  part  of  Lorraine  with  Metz. 
Five  milliards  indemnity.  Entrance  into  Paris  on  the 
1st  of  March  of  30,000  Prussians  through  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe  and  as  far  as  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  until  the 
ratification  of  the  treaty.' 

"  Such  is  our  fate,  Juliette.  It  is  horrible.  The  stories  of 
Bismarck's  insolence  arc  ghastly.  Indignation  is  universal. 
Nevertheless,  the  majority  will  vote  for  peace.  Will  the 
minority  be  large  enough  to  show  the  Prussians  that  their 
victory  might  have  been  disputed  ? 

"Everyone  is  afraid  of  what  may  happen  in  Paris  when 
the  Prussians  enter.  Chanzy1  said  just  now  in  my  pre- 
sence :  '  I  have  thought  it  over  well.  It  will  be  better  to 
resume  hostilities.  There  is  still  a  chance  of  our  being 
able  to  pull  ourselves  together.  I  shall  certainly  feel 
justified  in  voting  against  the  treaty  of  peace.'  "  2 

Adam  interrupted  his  letter  to  go  and  vote.  The  poor 
little  minority  was  miserable— only  107  against  546  votes 
in  favour  of  peace.  Then  in  heartrending  terms  Adam 
proceeds  to  describe  the  famous  protest  of  the  twenty-five 
deputies  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  and  Grosjean's  sorrowful 
leave-taking  uttered  on  their  behalf  and  terminating  with 
the  words  :  "  We  shall  ever  cherish  with  a  filial  affection 
France  absent  from  our  hearths  until  the  day  when  she 
returns  to  her  place  there." 

"  I  have  always  foreseen  it,"  writes  Mme.  Adam.  "  From 
the  day  of  surrender  I  had  grieved  over  that  shameful, 
cowardly  peace.  The  France  I  idolize  !  Now  she  sees 
torn  from  her  those  provinces  which  our  husbands  and  our 
sons  might  have  preserved.  .  .  .  The  days  may  pass  and 

1  The  general,  who,  during  the  siege  of  Paris,  had  commanded  the 
army  of  Central  France. 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  44. 


164  MADAME   ADAM 

years  be  added  unto  them,  but  never,  until  the  hour  strikes 
for  the  deliverance  of  our  brethren  now  handed  over  to 
Prussia,  will  the  wound  I  receive  to-day  be  healed."  x 

The  Treaty  signed  by  Thiers  and  Jules  Favre  at  Versailles 
was  ratified  by  the  Bordeaux  Assembly  on  the  1st  of  March. 
Henceforth  there  was  no  reason  why  the  Parliament  should 
not  return  northwards. 

"  Just  now,"  wrote  Adam  to  his  wife,2  "  Thiers  opened 
the  question  of  the  town  in  which  the  Assembly  shall 
deliberate.  He  is  resolved  to  leave  Bordeaux  immedi- 
ately. This  is  foolish,  unless  he  is  prepared  to  return  at 
once  to  Paris." 

But  the  conservative  majority  of  the  Assembly  was 
averse  to  carrying  on  their  deliberations  in  the  capital. 
Paris  they  regarded  as  the  hot-bed  of  revolution,  creating 
a  new  government  and  imposing  it  by  telegraph  3  on  the 
rest  of  France  every  fifteen  years.  For  the  first  time  in 
French  history  a  great  gulf  had  opened  between  Paris  and 
the  provinces.  Bourges  and  Fontainebleau  were  both 
suggested  as  suitable  meeting-places.  But  the  choice 
finally  fell  on  Versailles,  whose  monarchical  associations 
harmonised  so  well  with  the  hopes  cherished  by  the  party 
in  majority  at  Bordeaux. 

Louis  Blanc,  one  of  the  deputies  for  Paris,  loudly  pro- 
tested against  this  decision.  Thus  to  abandon  Paris,  he 
argued,  would  be  to  drive  the  metropolis  to  create  a 
government  of  its  own.  Alas  !  cette  vieille  barbe  of  1848 
proved  only  too  true  a  prophet.  This  slight  put  upon  Paris 
was  partly  responsible  for  the  institution  of  the  Commune 
and  all  the  horrors  of  civil  war  which  followed.  For  the 
Government  to  turn  its  back  upon  Paris  was  not  a  measure 
likely  to  placate  the  discontent  with  which  the  city  was 
seething,  or  to  soothe  the  nerves  of  the  heroic  town  all 
unstrung  by  the  horrors  of  the  siege. 

The  National  Assembly  held  its  last  meeting  at  Bordeaux 
on  the  11th  of  March.  The  Versailles  session  was  to  open 
on  the  20th.  By  that  time  Paris  was  in  open  insurrection ; 
and  the  President,  who  on  leaving  Bordeaux  had  with 
his  ministers  taken  up  his  residence  within  the  capital, 
deemed  it  expedient  to  decamp  to  Versailles.  The  declara- 
tion that  the  Commune  est  le  pouvoir  unique,  son  autorite 
est  absolu  appeared  in  the  Officiel  on  the  26th. 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  47.         a  Ibid.,  55,         3  Hanotaux,  op.  cit„  I,  130. 


THE   COMMUNE  165 

"  Between  Paris  and  Versailles,"  wrote  Adam  to  his 
wife,  "  there  is  something  more  than  the  Great  Wall  of 
China,  there  is  something  more  than  a  hundred  leagues, 
there  is  a  hundred  years,  a  whole  century."  x  Nevertheless, 
throughout  those  hideous  two  months  from  the  outbreak 
of  insurrection  to  the  fall  of  the  Commune  at  the  end  of 
May,  Edmond  Adam,  deputy  of  Paris,  braving  the  dangers 
of  arrest  and  execution,  continued  to  pass  to  and  fro, 
between  the  revolted  city  and  Versailles,  ever  hoping  that 
he  might  be  able  to  facilitate  some  compromise  between  the 
rival  authorities.  From  an  interview  with  his  old  friend 
Thiers,  however,  he  derived  no  encouragement.  He 
feared  that  the  President's  chief  desire  was  to  appear  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world  as  conqueror  of  provincial  France 
and  of  the  Revolution  at  Paris.2 

Of  her  husband's  attitude  Mme.  Adam  strongly  approved. 
"  You  owe  it  to  Paris,"  she  wrote.  "  For  to  Paris  you  are 
indebted  for  everything  since  the  day  when  you  first  joined 
the  staff  of  the  National.  Paris  has  chosen  you  for  its 
representative.  Paris,  though  misguided,  is  well  worth 
the  risk  you  are  running  for  her."  3 

But  Juliette  longed  to  share  her  husband's  dangers. 
Alice,  after  weeks  of  agonising  suspense,  had  been  restored 
to  her.  "  Alice  and  Bibi  might  well,"  she  wrote  to  Adam, 
"  be  left  in  the  care  of  M.  and  Mme.  Aries  Dufour,"  lepere  and 
la  mere,  as  Juliette  called  them,  who  were  still  at  Bruyeres. 
For  was  it  not  the  place  of  a  deputy's  wife  to  be  at  his 
side  in  the  city  which  had  elected  him  ?  Banished  from 
Adam  and  from  her  friends  her  exile  was  intolerable.  But 
her  husband  replied  that  he  could  not  endure  the  anxiety 
of  her  presence  in  Paris ;  that  while  he  was  obliged  to  be  at 
Versailles  the  thought  of  her  in  the  revolted  city,  a  prey  to 
the  horrors  of  that  terrific  insurrection,  would  drive  him 
mad.  "  My  only  strength,"  he  continued,  "  arises  from 
the  thought  that  you  are  far  from  the  terrible  events  which 
threaten  us.  Our  friends  think  it  is  the  end  of  the  world. 
But  I  am  resolved,  even  in  this  cataclysm,  not  entirely  to 
despair.  In  all  the  darkness  and  chaos,  I  seem  to  discern 
a  ray  of  hope.  As  for  us,  deputies  of  a  capital  in  insurrec- 
tion, our  situation  becomes  terrifically  difficult.  I  am  on 
the  boulevard  this  evening.  But  shall  I  be  to-morrow? 
Every  one  is  trying  to  persuade  me  to  abandon  my  daily 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  120.  *  Ibid.,  83.  3  Ibid.,  92,  105. 


166  MADAME   ADAM 

journey,  which  is  so  likely  to  be  interrupted  either  at  Paris 
or  at  Versailles." 

While  feeling  that  no  reproach  was  too  bitter  to  bring 
against  the  leaders  of  the  Commune,  against  those  who, 
under  the  conqueror's  very  eye,  had  let  loose  the  rabid 
hounds  of  civil  war,  with  Paris  and  the  rank  and  file 
of  Parisians  Mme.  Adam  never  ceased  to  sympathise. 
"  Most  of  the  Communards,"  she  writes,  "...  are  pos- 
sessed by  the  madness  of  defeat,  a  madness  which  I  under- 
stand, for  I  have  suffered  from  it  myself  at  the  close  of  the 
siege.  In  that  madness  there  is  no  cowardice.  It  consists 
rather  in  a  passionate  desire  to  assert,  no  matter  where  and 
how,  the  courage  one  has  acquired,  the  courage  which 
traitors  have  neglected  to  utilise."  x 

The  correspondence  between  the  Adams  throughout  these 
weeks  shows  husband  and  wife  in  complete  agreement.  It 
also  reveals  great  moderation  and  a  desire  to  see  both 
sides  of  many  difficult  questions. 

It  was  not  until  the  last  days  of  May,  as  we  have  said, 
that  Mme.  Adam  returned  to  Paris,  to  a  Paris  desolated  by 
two  bombardments,  by  ferocious  street-fighting  and  by  the 
madness  of  a  defeated  mob,  raging  throughout  the  days  and 
nights  of  a  hideous  week  of  explosions  and  incendiarism. 
Mme.  Adam  returned  to  find  the  blackened  ruins  of  the 
Tuileries,  the  smoking  ashes  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  a  heap 
of  stones  in  the  square  where  the  Vendome  Column  had 
stood. 

In  the  lives  of  many  strong  personalities  there  comes  a 
crisis,  a  parting  of  the  ways,  when  in  a  convulsion  of  the 
whole  being  character  and  disposition  receive  a  new  orienta- 
tion. For  how  many  is  not  such  a  crisis  presented  by  the 
present  war  !  In  the  religious  world  such  a  revolution  is 
described  as  conversion.  This  crisis  came  to  Mme.  Adam 
through  national  humiliation  and  the  civil  strife  which 
followed  the  catastrophe  of  1870.  La  patries  defeat  had 
planted  deep  in  her  nature  an  antagonism  which  will 
doubtless  endure  to  the  end.  Henceforth  we  shall  find 
accentuated  more  and  more  strongly  in  her  character  and 
disposition  the  irreconcileable  note.  She  had  always  been 
emphatic.  She  was  born  to  be  as  fervent  a  hater  as  she  was 
an  ardent  lover.  For  her  there  had  never  been  many  open 
questions.  Now  in  every  cause  she  espouses  she  holds  the 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  124. 


THE   COMMUNE  167 

position  of  a  Vou trance.  The  iron  of  national  defeat  and 
civil  war  had  entered  into  her  soul.  On  the  30th  of  October, 
1870,  on  learning  the  loss  of  Le  Bourget  Fort,  she  had 
written  :  x  "I  cannot  describe  the  vexation,  the  discourage- 
ment, the  wrath,  the  moral  perturbation  which  possess 
me."  On  so  patriotic  and  fervent  a  nature  as  hers  these 
experiences  could  not  fail  to  imprint  an  indelible  mark. 
Her  patriotism,  as  we  have  repeatedly  seen,  had  always 
been  ardent.  Je  pretends  etre  Francois  plus  que  personne 
was  her  own  sentiment  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  Picard 
weaver  in  her  first  novel,  Mon  Village.  After  the  war, 
growing  with  national  disaster,2  her  patriotism  became  a 
consuming  fire.  Of  herself  she  might  have  written  the 
words  she  penned  of  Edmond  About  :  "  il  s'est  reveille 
de  V horrible  cauchemar  patriote  fanatique.''''  3  "  Voire  patrio- 
iisme^  wrote  her  friend  General  Gallifet,4  "  est  peint  sur 
vos  traits  et  petille  dans  votre  conversation^ 

The  Commune  had  taught  her  to  regard  socialism  and 
internationalism  as,  after  Germany,  her  country's  most 
formidable  enemies.  Her  horror  when  her  father  proposed 
to  marry  her  to  a  working  man  had  shown  that  in  those 
early  days  she  was  not  free  from  a  certain  class  prejudice. 
An  ardent  republican,  she  had  believed  in  fraternity  but 
not  in  equality.  For  her  as  for  Plato  the  ideal  state 
would  be  governed  by  the  elite.  Socialism  she  had  ever 
abhorred.  And  as  the  years  went  on,  she  came  to  have  less 
and  less  faith  in  the  masses.  During  those  disturbed  months 
which  preceded  the  war,  when,  looking  down  from  her 
window  on  the  Boulevard  Poissonniere,  she  saw  Paris 
workmen  (les  blouses  blanches)  holding  nightly  conferences 
with  policemen,  she  had  no  doubt  of  their  being  agents 
provocateurs.  That  the  Commune's  excesses  should  con- 
firm and  aggravate  this  suspiciousness  was  inevitable. 

Her  father's  sympathy  with  the  revolutionists  caused 
her  unspeakable  grief.  Dr.  Lambert,  after  sending  Alice 
to  Bruyeres,  had  returned  to  Paris,  where  he  remained  to 
witness  and  to  approve  the  insurrection.  Nothing  could 
ever  induce  him  to  blame  the  communards.  He  had 
welcomed  the  movement  as  the  dawn  of  social  regeneration. 
And  for  the  crimes  of  the  rebels  he  held  Thiers  and  his 
government  responsible.      How   painful  for  Mine.   Adam 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  149.  2  Ibid.,  VII.  282. 

3  Ibid.,  V.  222.  «  Ibid.,  VII.  355. 


168  MADAME   ADAM 

was    all    conversation  with   her  father  at  this  time  will 
readily  be  imagined. 

Closely  associated  with  the  communards  throughout  had 
been  members  of  "the  Internationale,"  x  that  vast  cosmo- 
politan organisation,  inspired  by  Karl  Marx  and  instituted 
in  London  in  1862.  "  The  Internationale  "  had  given  its 
support  to  the  Central  Committee  which  ruled  Paris,  and  it 
had  fully  approved  of  the  message  sent  to  the  German 
commander  assuring  him  that  the  German  army  had 
nothing  to  fear  from  the  insurrection.2  Indeed,  it  seemed 
to  Mme.  Adam  that  the  Germans  had  everything  to  gain 
from  the  civil  strife  then  rending  France,  and  that  the 
Communards  were  simply  playing  Bismarck's  game.  Had 
they  not  purged  of  danger  and  disorder  other  European 
capitals  by  gathering  into  Paris  from  London,  Rome, 
Vienna,  and  Berlin,  anarchists  whose  railway  fares  "  seemed 
to  fall  like  manna  from  heaven  !  "  3 

For  some  years,  while  she  had  been  gradually  coming  to 
perceive  the  danger  which  threatened  from  German  aggres- 
sion, Mme.  Adam  had  been  growing  more  and  more  suspici- 
ous of  the  internationalist  movement.  With  the  Germanis- 
ing tendencies  of  Renan,  Gaston  Paris  and  other  members 
of  her  circle  she  had  no  sympathy  whatever.  After  the 
war  she  could  not  refrain  from  regarding  all  international- 
ists as  traitors  to  their  country.4  Any  sympathy  with 
Germany  appeared  to  her  as  nothing  short  of  treason,  and 
treason  of  the  deepest  dye.  The  bonds  of  friendship  which 
united  her  to  George  Sand  were  strained  almost  to  breaking- 
point  when  her  friend  wrote  that  she  desired  peace  "  not  for 
the  sake  of  France  alone  but  for  the  sake  of  Germany,  and 
in  order  to  avert  the  ruin  of  two  civilisations." 

"  This  is  one  of  my  most  cruel  sorrows,"  wrote  Mme. 
Adam.  "  A  gulf  has  opened  between  me  and  the  friend 
whom  I  adored.  Never  shall  we  understand  one  another 
again.  She  .  .  .  has  reverted  to  the  old  humanitarianism 
of  1848.  She,  like  my  friend  Aries  Dufour,  permits  herself 
to  be  moved  by  pity  for  the  Germans." 

1  That  for  the  Commune's  excesses  the  Government  held  "  the  Inter- 
nationale "  partly  responsible  is  proved  by  the  introduction  into  the 
National  Assembly  of  a  Bill  condemning  as  a  criminal  offence  membership 
of  this  society.     Favre,  of.  cit.,  III.  479. 

2  Souvenirs,  V.  80.  3  Ibid.,  76;   Hanotaux,  op.  cit.,  I.  188. 
*  Ibid.,  81. 


THE   COMMUNE  169 

Had  Mmc.  Sand  witnessed  with  Juliette  all  the  horrors 
of  the  siege,  could  she  have  maintained  that  serenity 
which  from  henceforth  she  never  wearied  of  preaching  to 
her  young  friend  ?  "  Do  not  let  us  be  nervous  and  agitated," 
she  writes,  "  but  reasonable,  for  in  that  direction  alone 
lies  the  path  of  duty."  x  In  those  days  it  seemed  to  Mme. 
Adam  that  this  sweet  reasonableness  was  only  possible 
for  those  who  had  remained  aloof  from  the  struggle;  and 
between  them  and  herself  who  had  lived  in  the  heart  of  the 
inferno  there  was  a  wide  gulf  fixed.  How  wide  she  realised 
painfully  when,  worn  and  wan,  after  that  terrible  railway 
journey  from  Paris,  she  was  greeted  by  her  friends  at  Cannes 
with  the  words,  "  Are  you  not  glad  to  be  at  Bruyeres  once 
more?  "  "  Glad  !  "  She  was  aghast  at  that  word.  Yet 
it  accorded  well  with  their  smiling  faces  and  their  perfect 
health.  "But  are  you  pleased  that  the  war  is  over?" 
they  persisted.  "  And  our  defeat  ?  "  she  cried.  "  Do 
you  not  realise  that  it  is  going  to  tear  out  our  very  flesh  ?  " 
And  she  dismissed  them  abruptly,  horrified  to  find  "  French 
people    so    detached  from    France." 2     Later    she    wrote  : 

The  pure  southern  sky  has  never  been  defiled  by  the  smoke 
of  German  bivouacs.  For  the  people  of  Provence  the  war 
has  been  a  blood-stained  book,  but  one  the  pages  of  which 
they  have  hardly  turned  over."  3 

With  Mmc.  Adam  it  was  very  different.  For  la  grande 
Frangaise  "  the  terrible  year  "  stands  out  as  the  one  inefface- 
able landmark,  dominating  the  whole  of  her  subsequent 
career. 

1  Souvenirs,  V.  158.  2  Ibid.,  9.  3  Ibid.,  213. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

gambetta's  egeria 

1871—1878 

"  Adam  et  moi,  nous  riavons  pas  d 'autre  espoir,  pas  d 'autre  culte  que  Gam- 
betta.  II  est  pour  nous  la  personnification  mime  de  la  France,  V expression 
vivante  et  agissante  de  notre  relevement,  de  nos  certitudes  republicaines  et 
nationales." — Juliette  Adam. 

Mme.  Adam's  attitude  towards  Gambetta  passed  through 
three  phases.  During  the  war  she  regarded  him  as  the 
incarnation  of  national  defence,  after  the  defeat  of  1871 
as  V  Homme  de  la  Revanche  ;  finally,  when  la  Revanche  was 
delayed  she  grew  first  impatient  and  then  disappointed 
with  her  former  hero.  It  is  with  the  two  first  of  these 
phases  that  we  shall  deal  in  this  chapter. 

As  we  have  seen,  Gambetta  had  already  been  admitted 
to  Mme.  Adam's  salon  before  the  war.  But  from  the 
opening  of  the  siege  until  a  year  after  the  peace  they  met 
but  seldom  if  at  all.  After  Gambetta's  courageous  balloon 
ascent  from  Paris,  and  his  safe,  if  hazardous,  landing  in  a 
wood  near  Montdidier,  all  through  those  darkest  days  of 
VAnnee  Terrible,  Juliette  Adam  derived  almost  her  only 
consolation  and  hope  from  Gambetta's  dispatches.  The 
energy  he  was  deploying  in  his  country's  service  made  her 
pulse  throb  with  confidence  and  courage.  The  news 
brought  by  carrier  pigeon  into  the  besieged  capital  of  the 
armies  he  was  creating — Faidherbe's  in  the  north,  Chanzy's 
on  the  Loire,  Bourbaki's  in  the  east — seemed  almost  to 
compensate  for  the  indecision  and  inaction  of  the  defenders 
of  Paris. 

"  On  the  24th  of  November,"  she  wrote,1  "  this  morning, 
I  am  mad  with  joy,  mad  with  hope.  I  read  and  read  again 
Gambetta's  dispatch  to  Jules  Favre.  I  bless  the  great 
patriot  who  sends  it  to  us.     If  Gambetta,  a  republican, 

1  Souvenirs,  IV.  286-7. 
170 


GAMBETTA'S   EGERIA  171 

were  to  save  our  France  !     When  others  doubt  him  and 
his  valour,  I  do  not  doubt." 

"  Why,  we  have  an  army  on  the  Loire  two  hundred 
thousand  men  strong  !  In  a  week  we  shall  have  another 
hundred  thousand  :  two  hundred  thousand  recruits  are 
clamouring  to  be  on  the  march.  At  last  !  .  .  .  Long  live 
France  !  .  .  .  and  she  will  live,  our  patrie  frangaise.  It 
will  not  be  so  easy  to  tread  upon  her.  Frenchmen  will 
be  found  to  defend  her,  to  prevent  the  invader  from  pillag- 
ing, from  defiling  her  from  one  end  of  the  land  to  the  other. 
It  seems  to  me  that  all  Paris  should  thank  Gambetta.  I 
write  to  him." 

And  when  the  superb  movement  of  French  energy, 
with  which  Gambetta  alone  had  been  able  to  inspire  the 
provinces,  seemed  to  Juliette  Adam  to  have  been  nullified 
by  the  capital's  submission,  she  followed  her  hero  more 
fervently  than  ever  in  his  advocacy  of  war  to  the  bitter 
end.  She  deplored  the  mistrust  and  suspicion  with  which 
the  other  members  of  the  September  Government  regarded 
cefoufurieux,  as  they  called  him.  She  deplored  his  resigna- 
tion on  the  5th  of  February,  1871,  of  the  office  of  Minister 
of  the  Interior. 

Gambetta' s  colleagues  accused  him  of  ruling  France  by 
terror,  and  endeavouring  to  make  himself  a  dictator.  To 
the  statesman  whom  Bismarck  regarded  as  the  most 
superb  organiser  in  Europe,  no  portfolio  was  assigned  in 
the  government  Thiers  was  forming  at  Bordeaux. 

So  completely  out  of  sympathy  with  the  National 
Assembly  and  its  monarchical  majority  did  Gambetta  find 
himself  that,  after  the  signing  of  the  preliminaries  of  peace 
and  after  he  had  taken  part  in  that  memorable  protest 
of  the  Alsace-Lorraine  deputies  against  the  session  of  those 
provinces,  he  resigned  his  seat  and  for  some  months  with- 
drew from  political  life. 

On  his  return  to  it,  in  the  summer  of  1871,  he  found  his 
friends,  the  Adams,  in  Paris,  and  Juliette  once  more  the 
mistress  of  a  brilliant  and  influential  political  salon.  No 
sooner  had  she  re-established  herself  in  the  Maison  Sallan- 
drouze  than  her  friends  began  to  gather  round  her  once 
more. 

The  social  life  of  the  metropolis  was  gradually  being 
resumed.  But  it  took  at  least  a  year  before  anything  like 
the  old  brilliance  revived.     The  first  sign  of  that  revival 


172  MADAME   ADAM 

was  when  Parisian  women  began  to  care  about  clothes. 
"  Lesfemmes  du  siege"  writes  Mme.  Adam,  "  qui  ne  savaient 
plus  ce  que  cetait  que  s'habiller,  s'occupaient  a  nouveau  de 
leurs  robes"  of  course  she  adds,  "  moi  la  'premiere"  x 

Now  once  again  her  Wednesday  dinner-parties  afforded 
an  occasion  for  grande  toilette.  On  other  evenings  any  of 
the  Adams'  friends,  who  happened  to  be  passing  along  the 
boulevard,  were  welcome  to  come  up  just  as  they  were. 
Among  those  evening  callers  was  more  than  one  well- 
known  Englishman.  Mr.  Richard  Whiteing,  in  his  book 
My  Harvest,2  paints  a  vivid  picture  of  Mme.  Adam's  salon. 
He  signals  her  out  as  one  of  those  republican  women  who 
were  reconstructing  the  salon  on  a  Republican  basis. 

The  great  subjects  of  discussion  on  those  Wednesday  and 
Friday  evenings  were  Gambetta's  speeches.  Long  passages 
from  them  were  recited  3  by  Spuller,  the  deputy  who  led 
the  most  moderate  section  of  Gambetta's  supporters.4 

Then  one  day  in  June  the  orator  himself  arrived.  He 
had  asked  to  spend  the  evening  alone  with  his  hosts.  Adam 
had  not  seen  him  since  the  eve  of  his  departure  from 
Bordeaux. 

"  Cette  soiree"  writes  Juliette,5  "  a  ete  longue  et  a"un 
inter  it  passionant."  While  not  entirely  approving  of  their 
friend's  attitude,  of  his  sympathy  with  the  Commune,  for 
example,  the  Adams  congratulated  him  on  his  recent 
speech  at  Bordeaux. 

"  The  level-headedness,  the  wisdom  of  that  speech," 
Adam  told  Gambetta,  "  confounded  your  enemies.  You 
may  now  group  around  you  a  party  recruited  from  the 
left  and  including  a  few  members  of  the  left  centre.  Juliette 
and  I  will  be  able  to  contrive  for  you  a  certain  understanding 
with  the  left  centre  on  the  great  questions  of  national 
policy." 

These  words  foretold  what  was  to  be  the  role  of  Mme. 
Adam's  salon  in  the  days  of  its  greatest  brilliance.  As 
the  rallying  ground  for  the  various  parties  of  republican 
opposition  to  the  reactionary  majority  in  the  Assembly, 
it  rendered  important  service,  not  only  to  Gambetta,  but 
also  to  the  President  (Thiers)  in  his  difficult  task  of  keeping 

1  Souvenirs,  V.  276.  2  p.  140.  ■  Souvenirs,  V.  163. 

4  The  extremists  were  led  by  Ranc,  who  was  a  much  more  sincere 
admirer  of  the  Great  Tribune. 
6  Souvenirs,  V.  165. 


GAMBETTA'S   EGERIA  173 

the  peace  between  the  discordant  elements  of  his  nonde- 
script and  essentially  provisional  Government.  Later, 
after  Thiers'  resignation,  during  the  days  of  the  Republique 
Militante  between  1873  and  1876,  Mme.  Adam's  salon 
continued  to  hold  together  various  sections  of  the  republican 
party  :  the  left  centre,  the  extreme  left  and  the  republican 
union,  which  consisted  entirely  of  Gambetta's  friends. 
"  Our  house,"  writes  Mme.  Adam,  "  became  very  useful 
to  Gambetta.  There  he  met  artists  whom  he  charmed, 
financiers  whom  he  reassured,  political  adversaries  whom 
he  enrolled."  x  Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  who  2  in  those  years 
was  often  in  Paris  for  two  or  three  weeks  at  a  time,  used 
generally  to  go  to  her  evening  receptions,  of  which  he  has 
a  very  distinct  recollection.  He  remembers  Mme.  Adam 
as  the  recognised  Egeria  of  Gambetta,  as  very  cultivated 
and  intelligent.  Obviously  she  had  been  very  beautiful ; 
she  was  still  extremely  handsome,  and  above  all  things 
full  of  graciousness  and  tact  and  good-will — the  grace  and 
the  good-will  of  a  cultivated  bourgeoise  accustomed  to  charm 
and  determined  to  exercise  her  charm  for  a  cause  she  had 
at  heart.  Sir  Sidney  used  to  find  it  interesting  to  watch 
her  moving  about,  the  only  lady  at  her  receptions,  from 
some  old  dry  doctrinaire  of  the  Dufaure  group  to  some 
fiery  municipal  Radical  from  the  south;  among  deputies 
of  all  shades,  wide  asunder  as  the  poles  in  tradition  and 
feeling  and  temperament,  and  to  see  her  throwing  one  after 
another  into  good  humour  by  sheer  womanly  cordiality 
and  grace. 

Indeed,  all  who  have  seen  Mme.  Adam  entertaining  her 
guests  will  agree  that  she  possesses  the  true  salon  manner, 
and  that  she  is  mistress  of  that  enviable  art  of  talking  so 
as  to  make  others  talk. 

Had  it  not  been  for  his  admiration  of  Gambetta,  Edmond 
Adam  would  have  thrown  in  his  lot  entirely  with  that 
section  of  the  republican  party  known  as  the  left  centre. 
"  As  it  was,"  writes  his  wife,  "  he  was  to  serve  as  a  hyphen 
(d  trait  d'union)  between  the  left  centre,  the  republican 
union  and  the  extreme  left.  There  were  those  who  thought 
that   Juliette   was   chiefly   responsible   for   her   husband's 

1  Souvenirs,  V.  166. 

2  I  am  greatly  indebted  to  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  for  having  taken  the 
trouble  to  send  me  these  reminiscences,  and  for  permitting  me  to  use 
them. 


174  MADAME   ADAM 

sympathies  with  the  extreme  wing  of  the  republican  party. 
But  this  she  will  not  admit,1  though  she  does  not  deny 
that  her  special  friends  were  radicals,  while  Adam's 
were  moderates.  Thiers  himself  said  to  Adam  one  day, 
"  Quand  voire  femme  rongit,  bleuissez."  And  it  is  obvious 
that  Juliette  with  her  impulsive  nature  not  infrequently 
lost  patience  with  the  grandes  ombres  elyseennes,  as  she 
dubbed  Laurent  Pichat,  Victor  Hugo,  Louis  Blanc,  and  those 
other  vieilles  barbes  of  1848  who  were  the  mainstay  of  the 
left  centre.  "  For  them,"  she  writes,  "  Republique  is  a 
solemn  and  pompous  word.  The  young,  with  Gambetta 
at  their  head,  are  more  practical  and  utilitarian."  They 
desired  a  government  adapted  to  the  phase  of  democracy 
to  which  France  had  then  attained.  Nevertheless,  there 
was  nothing  commonplace  or  even  opportunist  in  those 
bright  visions  of  the  future  Republic  which  Gambetta 
painted  in  his  speeches.  "  Half  smiling,"  writes  Mme. 
Adam,  "  he  came  straight  to  my  Athenian  Republic.2  .  .  . 
He  desired  a  France  withdrawn  into  herself  in  order  to 
heal  her  wounds.  But  when  he  spoke  of  her  role  after 
this  enforced  period  of  retirement,  then  he  had  a  vision 
of  her  future  prestige,  when  the  army,  chief  symbol  of 
the  country's  revival,  should  be  strengthened,  glorified 
every  day  in  order  to  raise  la  patrie  from  defeat.  Then 
he  saw  numberless  schools  educating  the  people — the 
French  schoolmaster  playing  as  prominent  a  part  as  the 
German  schoolmaster — secularism  dissipating  all  the  dark- 
ness of  clericalism,  liberating  thought,  correcting  the 
errors  of  the  past,  until  France,  grown  great  by  misfortune, 
astonished  the  whole  world  by  her  resurrection." 

Mme.  Adam  used  to  complain  that  in  Paris  during  the 
first  years  of  the  Republic,  while  the  National  Assembly 
continued  to  sit  at  Versailles,  anything  like  true  sociability 
was  impossible.  And  it  was  true  that  poor  "  capitulating 
Paris  "  was  somewhat  shorn  of  her  brightest  social  glories. 
The  whole  of  political  society  precipitated  itself  upon 
Versailles.  On  the  days  when  some  great  oration  was 
expected  from  Thiers,  Dufaure,  Batbie  or  Gambetta,  the 
railway  platform  at  the  Gare  St.  Lazare  was  thronged, 
and  the  carriages  in  the  Versailles  train  so  crowded  that 
it  was  almost  impossible  to  find  a  place.  Versailles  itself 
was  completely  transformed.  Never  since  its  royal  days 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  144-269.  *  Ibid.,  I.  169. 


GAMBETTA'S   EGERIA  175 

had  it  seen  such  life.  It  is  true  that  the  dull  stream  of 
black  coats  flowing  along  its  streets  made  one  long  for  the 
gay,  beplumed,  bejewelled  courtiers  of  le  Roi  Soleil.  Never- 
theless, the  political  whirl  of  the  place  was  much  greater 
than  ever  during  Vancien  rigime.  Constituents  waylaid 
deputies  in  the  streets  and  poured  into  their  impatient 
ears  whole  cahiers  of  grievances.  At  the  luncheon  and 
dinner-hour  the  Hotel  des  Reservoirs  was  packed.  It 
was  necessary  to  reserve  tables  days  in  advance.  And 
how  delightful  it  was  to  sit  and  sip  one's  coffee  in  the 
delicious  freshness  of  the  park  after  a  hot  summer  afternoon 
passed  in  the  close  atmosphere  of  the  parliament  chamber. 
In  that  charming  verandah,  which  many  of  us  know  so 
well,  ministers  and  deputies  met  together,  while  the  gay 
frocks  and  the  still  gayer  laughter  of  their  women  friends 
enlivened  the  scene.  Centuries  seemed  to  have  passed 
since  the  evil  days  of  V Annie  Terrible.  Nowhere  was  the 
miraculous  recuperative  force  of  France  more  striking, 
never  had  political  society  more  entrain  than  during  those 
parliament  years  at  Versailles. 

Of  that  sparkling  world  Mme.  Adam  was  one  of  the 
brightest  adornments,  one  of  the  gayest  flashers,  as  Fanny 
Burney  would  have  said.  Always  perfectly  gowned — elle 
portrait  admit ablement  la  toilette  was  the  opinion  of  every 
one — she  never  missed  an  important  siance.  After  having 
dined  at  the  Hotel  des  Reservoirs  in  the  evening,  she  would 
be  at  the  Gare  St.  Lazare  at  nine  the  next  morning;  and 
surrounded  by  a  coterie  of  eminent  politicians,  who  were 
all  in  love  with  her,  would  make  the  journey  to  Versailles 
and  take  her  accustomed  place  in  a  box  of  the  theatre  of 
the  Chateau,  which  now  served  as  a  meeting-place  for  the 
Assembly.  It  had  been  built  by  Gabriel  as  an  opera-house 
for  Louis  XIV.  While  what  had  been  the  stage,  now 
shut  off  from  the  main  building,  had  been  converted  into 
a  lobby,  a  mahogany  rostrum,  approached  by  a  double 
staircase  of  six  steps,  communicated  to  the  theatre  of  that 
most  autocratic  of  monarchs  something  of  the  air  of  a 
modern  parliament  house,  and  the  constant  movement 
among  the  seven  hundred  and  twenty-eight  representatives 
of  the  Republic,  the  perpetual  lifting  of  the  heavy  red  velvet 
portieres  which  led  into  the  lobby,  suggested  a  political 
instability  quite  out  of  harmony  with  the  traditions  of 
le  Grand  Monarque. 


176  MADAME   ADAM 

Among  the  most  striking  figures  in  the  Assembly  hall 
were  some  of  Juliette's  greatest  friends.  One  might 
easily  recognise  the  Orleanist  Marquis  de  Lasteyrie  by  his 
green  eye-shade,  M.  Jules  Simon  by  his  student's  stoop, 
M.  Dufaure  by  his  brown  frock-coat,  M.  Littre  by  his  blue 
velvet  skull-cap,  M.  Garnier-Pages  by  his  famous  faux  col, 
and  close  by  him  that  "  Bull  of  Bashan  of  politics,"  M. 
Gambetta,1  by  his  leonine  head  and  the  half-recumbent 
attitude  in  which  he  listened  attentively  to  every  word  of 
the  debate. 

Gambetta' s  first  appearance  at  Versailles  in  July  1871 
was  a  great  political  event.  At  a  by-election  he  had 
been  chosen  by  three  departments,  Bouches-du-Rhone, 
Var  and  Seine.  "  The  day  of  his  first  speech,"  writes 
Mme.  Adam,  "  was  a  day  of  profound  emotion  for  us,  and 
of  great  curiosity  for  others,  who  flocked  to  see  the  fou 
furieux."  In  those  days  Gambetta,  though  only  three- 
and-thirty,  was  already  threatened  with  that  stoutness 
which,  in  a  man  of  his  stature,  required  all  the  dignity  of 
his  strong  personality  to  carry  off.  He  had  not  yet,  more- 
over, been  taken  in  hand  by  Adam's  tailor.  His  black 
frock-coat,  white  drill  trousers  and  panama  hat  made  him 
appear  something  of  a  Tartarin.  The  unsuitability  of 
his  attire  would  sometimes  diminish  the  effect  of  his 
orations. 

On  the  July  day  when  this  political  Bohemian,  emerging 
from  his  five  months'  retirement,  suddenly  burst  upon 
the  cultivated  audience  at  Versailles,  his  power  of  utterance, 
his  energy  of  thought,  and  above  all  his  unexpected  modera- 
tion carried  every  one  away. 

"  He  roared"  (il  a  rugi),  said  the  wife  of  a  conservative 
deputy  who  sat  next  to  Mme.  Adam.  "  Yes,"  replied 
Juliette,  "  he  is  a  lion."  The  moment  was  one  when  the 
bishops  of  France,  led  by  Monseigneur  Dupanloup,  were 
petitioning  the  French  Chamber  to  restore  the  Pope's 
temporal  power.  Gambetta,  while  unchaining  all  the 
fervour  of  his  anti-clerical  wrath,  nevertheless  supported 
the  government  in  its  motion  that  the  question,  instead 
of  being  discussed  by  the  Assembly,  should  be  referred  to 
the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  His  support  of  Thiers, 
whom  he  and  his  friends  were  supposed  to  regard  as  nothing 
but  un  vieillard  sinistre,  took  every  one  by  surprise.  Coming 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  183. 


GAMBETTA'S   EGERIA  177 

home  in  the  train  Adam,  who  was  at  once  the  friend  of 
Thiers  and  of  Gambetta,  was  bombarded  with  questions — 

"  Come,  Adam,  you  must  be  in  the  know  !  Are  they  in 
agreement?  If  so,  you  must  be  acting  as  intermediary 
between  them."  x 

But  Adam  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  replied  :  "  Alas  ! 
I  only  wish  it  were  so.  But  it  is  very  far  from  being  the 
case  now,  or  likely  to  be  in  the  future." 

Indeed,  Thiers,  throughout  the  difficult  months  which 
were  to  follow,  was  to  regard  as  a  serious  obstacle  in  his 
path  Gambetta's  eloquent  advocacy  of  la  Revanche,  which 
so  delighted  Mme.  Adam.  For  at  that  time  Thiers  was 
engaged  in  those  delicate  negotiations  with  Bismarck 
which  culminated  in  March  1873,  in  the  paying  off  of  the 
five  milliards  war  indemnity,  and  in  the  consequent  libera- 
tion of  France  from  the  Prussian  occupation  almost  two 
years  before  the  time  stipulated  by  the  Treaty  of  Frankfort. 

This  magnificent  consummation,  far  surpassing  the 
wildest  hopes  of  the  most  sanguine,  Thiers  beheld  con- 
stantly endangered  by  Gambetta's  revanchard  fervour. 
The  President  trembled  when  he  heard  that  to  a  deputa- 
tion from  Alsace  Gambetta  had  declared  that  if  ever  France 
descended  to  such  a  depth  of  impiety  as  to  put  away  from 
her  the  image  of  bleeding,  mutilated  Alsace,  then  and  then 
alone  might  Alsatians  give  way  to  despair.2  "  This  is  not 
the  moment  for  such  a  declaration,"  exclaimed  Thiers.  "  Let 
him  wait.  Let  him  wait."  The  President  was  constantly 
entreating  Adam  to  implore  his  friend  to  be  moderate. 
His  ideas,  his  speeches  in  the  provinces,  were  impressing 
the  Germans  in  a  manner  most  unfavourable  to  the  negotia- 
tions which  were  proceeding.3  Never  did  the  Great  Tribune 
appear  to  Thiers  more  of  a  fou  furieux  than  during  the 
autumn  and  winter  of  1872  and  '73,  when  the  commis 
voyageux  de  la  politique  (the  political  commercial  traveller), 
as  he  liked  to  call  himself,  was  going  up  and  down  P'rance 
delivering  that  famous  series  of  speeches,  intended  to  rouse 
the  provinces  to  a  great  burst  of  republican  ardour,  which 
should  dissolve  the  reactionary  National  Assembly,  get  rid 
of  the  temporising  Thiers,  and  bring  in  Gambetta  and  his 
friends. 

Mme.    Adam,   despite    her    respect    for    Thiers,    deeply 
sympathised  with  Gambetta's  aims  as  he  declared  them 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  185.  a  Ibid.,  283.  "  Ibid.,  383. 

N 


178  MADAME   ADAM 

in  those  celebrated  orations.  Merely  to  read  Gambetta's 
speeches  was  to  lose  their  finest  flavour.  Unlike  the 
speeches  of  our  own  Edmund  Burke  and  John  Bright,  they 
will  never  be  classics.  His  eloquence,  for  its  full  appreci- 
ation, so  I  have  heard  Mme.  Adam  say,  required  the  magic 
of  his  presence,  the  thrill  of  his  sonorous  voice,  the  dramatic 
emphasis  of  his  gestures,  and  the  inspiration  of  his  whole 
presence. 

On  returning  from  Venice  to  Bruyeres  in  the  autumn 
of  1872,  she  and  Adam  read  the  first  reports  of  these 
speeches  in  the  newspapers.  Vigilance  and  patience  were 
the  two  qualities  Gambetta  most  fervently  enjoined  on 
his  compatriots.  And  vigilance  for  him  involved  two  all- 
important  reforms  :  the  reorganisation  of  the  army  on 
the  lines  of  universal  military  service,  and  compulsory 
education.  Chaque  citoyen  soldat  et  instruit  was  his  device.1 
Indeed,  it  is  largely  to  the  Great  Tribune  that  we  owe  that 
systematic  teaching  of  patriotism  in  French  schools  which 
in  the  present  war  is  bearing  such  rich  fruit.  "  Every 
child  in  our  elementary  schools,"  said  Gambetta,  "  must 
be  taught  that  a  cause  exists  to  which  it  must  give  every- 
thing, sacrifice  everything,  its  life,  its  future,  its  family, 
and  that  this  cause  is  France." 

These  words  Mme.  Adam  and  her  husband  read  over 
and  over  again.  "  Yes,"  exclaims  Juliette,  "  we  must 
sacrifice  ourselves  for  France ;  we  must  keep  nothing  back, 
and  we  must  also  serve  him  who  utters  these  patriotic 
words,2  and  who  has  never  despaired  of  his  country." 

With  Gambetta's  requirement  that  national  education 
must  be  as  secular  as  the  state  itself  the  Adams  were  also 
in  agreement.  While  every  religion  should  be  assured  of 
absolute  liberty,  Gambetta  declared  at  Havre,  "  the  state 
must  not  identify  itself  with  any  dogma  or  philosophy. 
If  such  questions  are  admitted  to  be  within  its  competency, 
then  it  becomes  at  once  arbitrary,  persecuting,  intolerant." 
With  the  importance  Gambetta  attached  to  the  army 
the  Adams  were  in  perfect  sympathy.  All  three  they 
shared  the  President's  emotion  when,  at  the  close  of  the 
Longchamps  review  in  the  summer  of  1871,  le  petit  bour- 
geois,   descending   from    his    seat,    grasped   the   hands   of 

1  Gambetta's  speech  at  Havre.     See  Hanotaux,  Hist.  Contemporaine, 
1.406. 

2  Souvenirs,  I.  278. 


GAMBETTAS   EGERIA  179 

Marshal  MacMahon  as  he  marched  past  at  the  head  of 
the  army  he  had  reformed,  and  in  a  voice  choked  by 
a  sob  murmured  "  Thank  you."  "  Gambetta,"  wrote 
Juliette,  "  rejoices  at  the  success  of  the  review.  He  adores 
the  army."  * 

During  their  first  talk  with  Gambetta  after  his  return 
to  political  life  the  Adams  had  advised  their  friend  to 
found  a  republican  newspaper.  "  11  vous  faut  un  grand 
journal,"  said  Adam.2  "  Would  it  not  be  possible,"  asked 
Gambetta,  "to  revive  L' Ave nir  National?  "  Founded  in 
the  middle  sixties,  largely  financed  by  Adam,  with  his 
wife  for  one  of  its  regular  contributors,  and  her  friend  Peyrat 
as  editor,  the  paper  had  at  first  been  a  brilliant  success. 
Then  it  fell  on  evil  days,  and  in  order  to  keep  it  going  at 
all,  Adam  had  to  subscribe  large  sums.  Having  been 
hard  hit  by  this  earlier  journalistic  adventure,  Adam 
did  not  feel  himself  in  a  position  to  provide  funds  for  a 
second.  He  suggested,  however,  that  Gambetta  might 
apply  to  other  ardent  republicans,  to  Dorian  and  to  that 
fervent  Alsatian,  Scheurer-Kestner,  for  example.  While 
for  collaborators,  he  could  not  do  better  than  appeal  to 
Challemel-Lacour,  Spuller,  Ranc,  Paul  Bert,  etc. 

The  outcome  of  this  conversation  was  the  foundation 
of  La  Ripnblique  Frangaise.  "  Grandissime  tenement" 
writes  Mine.  Adam,  "  La  Republique  Frangaise  a  para." 
Gambetta,  assisted  by  Spuller,  was  its  editor-in-chief, 
Challemel-Lacour  its  literary  editor,  Proust  was  to  con- 
tribute articles  on  foreign  politics.  The  new  paper's  office 
was,  of  course,  in  the  Rue  Croissant.3  Wrhere  else  but  in 
that  most  famous  journalist  street  in  Paris  could  an  in- 
fluential newspaper  appear  !  And  close  at  hand,  only 
round  the  corner,  in  the  Boulevard  Poissonniere  was  the 
Adams'  flat.  So,  equally  of  course,  when  the  editors' 
work  was  done  and  they  required  some  relaxation  after 
their  literary  labours,  they  were  always  welcome  to  talk 
and  dominoes  in  the  hospitable  Maison  Sallandrouzc.  "  The 
workshops  of  the  RSpublique  Frangaise  will  be  in  the  Rue 
Croissant,  the  Salon  in  the  Maison  Sallandrouzc,"  writes 

1  Souvenirs,  V.  173. 

2  Ibid.,  167. 

3  Here  are  published  to-day  the  Echo  de  Paris,  V Intransigeant  and  many 
other  well-known  journals.  It  was  in  a  cafe  at  the  corner  of  this  street 
that  Jauris  was  assassinated  in  1914. 


180  MADAME   ADAM 

Mme.  Adam.1  The  paper's  success  justified  all  the  hopes 
inspired  by  the  eminence  of  its  editors  and  contributors. 

In  every  detail  of  its  organisation  Mme.  Adam  took  a 
deep  interest.  And  she  was  delighted  when  Spuller 
satisfied  her  curiosity  by  describing  how  the  office  was 
worked  :  how  Challemel  arrived  at  five  o'clock,  looked 
through  the  dispatches  and  then  summoned  the  various 
editors  to  discuss  the  day's  events;  how  barely  had  the 
conversation  begun  when  Challemel  saw,  in  a  flash,  what 
would  be  the  subject  of  his  own  article;  how  Isambert,  the 
leader-writer,  invariably  came  late;  how  Paul  Bert,  who 
contributed  articles  on  science,  was  punctuality  itself. 

La  Republique  Francaise,  as  may  well  be  imagined, 
figured  large  in  the  conversation  when  in  the  spring  of 
1874  its  three  directors,  Gambetta,  Spuller  and  Challemel, 
visited  Bruyeres. 

Gambetta  stayed  there  a  week,  going  over  occasionally 
to  visit  his  parents  and  sister,  who  were  then  living  at 
Nice.  Mme.  Adam  had  made  their  acquaintance  some  time 
earlier.  She  found  them  excellent  people  of  the  shop- 
keeping  class.  Mme.  Gambetta,  a  Frenchwoman  of  la 
bonne  bourgeoisie,  but  with  no  dowry  to  speak  of,  had,  as 
we  have  said,  married  a  grocer  of  Genoese  origin,  who 
was  then  in  business  at  Cahors.  But  when  Mme.  Adam 
first  made  the  family's  acquaintance  they  were  living  at 
Nice.  The  household  consisted  of  Gambetta' s  father  and 
mother,  a  widowed  sister,  Benedetta,  her  little  boy  Leon, 
and  a  servant,  who,  having  entered  the  Gambettas'  service 
at  thirteen,  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  family.  Gambetta' s 
aunt,  the  famous  "  Tata,"  had  followed  her  nephew  to 
Paris.  His  mother,  Mme.  Adam  could  see  at  a  glance, 
lived,  moved  and  had  her  being  in  her  celebrated  son. 
She  was  proud  to  relate  how  before  his  birth  she  had  con- 
sulted a  soothsayer,  a  somnambulist,  who  had  declared  her 
about  to  be  the  mother  of  a  man  who  would  govern  France. 
Gambetta' s  relatives  remained  Mme.  Adam's  life-long 
friends.  They  frequently  visited  Bruyeres.  She  helped 
them  in  various  ways,  and  at  Gambetta' s  request  arranged 
a  second  marriage  for  his  widowed  sister,  who  became 
Mme.  Leris ;  and  when  she  is  in  the  south  of  France  Mme. 
Adam  never  fails  to  go  and  see  her.  Mme.  Leris  is  now 
living  at  Cahors,  in  what  was  formerly  a  monastic  dwelling. 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  214. 


GAMBETTA'S   EGERIA  181 

She  is  surrounded  by  relics  of  her  famous  brother,  trophies 
presented  to  him  on  great  public  occasions,  which  contrast 
strangely  with  the  ecclesiastical  fitments  of  the  house. 

One  day  in  1915,  when  I  arrived  at  Gif,  I  found  Mme. 
Adam  reading  a  letter  she  had  just  received  from  Gambetta's 
sister.  This  curious,  original  and  highly  entertaining  docu- 
ment I  was  permitted  to  read.  It  showed  plainly  that 
though  all  the  family  money  had  been  spent  on  the  son's 
education,  by  no  means  all  the  gifts  had  been  showered 
upon  him,  for  a  plentiful  dower  of  wit,  common  sense 
and  originality  has  evidently  fallen  to  the  lot  of  Mme. 
Benedetta. 

But  here  we  are  anticipating.  We  must  leave  Mme. 
Leris  and  go  back  to  the  year  1874,  when  her  illustrious 
brother  was  visiting  Bruyeres. 

Mme.  Adam  found  Gambetta  as  delightful  a  guest  as 
George  Sand.  She,  by  the  way,  was  one  of  his  bitterest 
foes.  She  regarded  him  as  nothing  but  a  windbag,  un 
simple  utilisateur.1 

Gambetta's  voracious  appetite,  challenging  comparison 
with  that  of  the  hero  of  his  favourite  author,  Rabelais, 
did  full  justice  to  the  good  cheer  which  Mme.  Adam  never 
fails  to  put  before  her  guests.  He  ate  well,  he  drank  well, 
and  he  enjoyed,  to  the  full,  all  the  picnics  and  the  excursions 
which  were  planned  for  his  entertainment,  even  the  sailings 
in  the  barque  named  after  one  of  his  arch-enemy's  master- 
pieces, La  Petite  Fadette,  and  which  ought,  if  there  had  been 
any  consistency  in  the  cosmos,  to  have  foundered  and 
shipwrecked  one,  at  any  rate,  of  its  passengers. 

Gambetta's  week  at  Bruyeres  afforded  opportunities 
for  many  serious  discussions.  And  although  the  friends 
were  on  the  whole  in  perfect  accord,  we  may,  in  the  accounts 
Mme.  Adam  gives  of  these  conversations,  discern  a  difference 
of  opinion,  slight  apparently,  yet  in  reality  fundamental, 
which,  though  at  first  a  mere  rift,  was  to  widen  into  a  chasm 
and  finally  to  separate  them.  Mme.  Adam  even  then 
began  to  sec  that  the  Republic  of  Gambetta's  dreams  was 
not  so  Athenian  as  she  thought.  Between  her  aristocratic 
ideas  and  his  radicalism  there  was  a  pronounced  difference. 
She  wanted  to  see  the  masses  led  by  the  Mite.  For  Gambetta 
there  was  to  be  no  Mite  :  the  masses  were  to  be  educated 
to  guide  and  govern  themselves.  "  Then  we  shall  sink 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  304. 


182  MADAME   ADAM 

to  their  level,"  prophesied  Juliette.  "  No,  we  shall  merely 
stretch  out  our  hands  to  them,"  was  Gambetta's  reply.1 

That  spring  visit  to  Bruyeres  was  repeated  in  the  follow- 
ing winter  (December,  1874)  and  many  times  afterwards. 
Gambetta  would  arrive  tired,  worn-out  by  his  political 
battles  and  by  his  electoral  campaigns.  But  he,  like 
Challemel-Lacour  and  many  other  exhausted  politicians, 
never  failed  to  find  Bruyeres  La  Villa  du  Bon  Repos.  Perfect 
restfulness  was  the  order  of  the  day.  Lunch  was  deferred 
until  two,  so  that  the  tired  guest  might  sleep  till  one. 
Even  the  house-dog,  "  Modeste,"  was  banished  to  the 
gardener's  cottage  for  fear  his  barkings  might  disturb  the 
great  man's  slumbers.  Everything  was  devised  to  divert 
his  mind  from  politics :  plays,  concerts  and  those  charades 
in  which  his  hostess  excels  even  to-day  in  her  eighty-first 
year.  During  excursions  and  picnics  not  a  word  so  much 
as  bearing  on  politics  was  permitted  to  be  spoken.  Against 
the  crowds  of  supporters,  admirers  and  curiosity-mongers 
who  would  have  invaded  his  solitude  his  host  and  hostess 
protected  him  with  line  energie  farouche.2  But  occasionally 
not  even  their  devotion  could  prevent  his  being  compelled 
to  make  a  speech  in  the  neighbourhood,  or  on  one  occasion 
from  the  balcony  of  Bruyeres  itself.  Certain  reactionary 
newspapers  did  not  scruple  to  attribute  a  political  signi- 
ficance to  Gambetta's  visits  to  Bruyeres.  They  hinted 
that  Marshal  MacMahon's 3  government  regarded  with 
disapproval  and  had  even  made  a  raid  on  one  of  these 
conciliabules  in  order  to  detect  and  denounce  a  civil  servant 
who  was  present.4 

In  the  intervals  of  these  visits,  and  while  Mme.  Adam 
was  at  Bruyeres,  Gambetta,  despite  his  multifarious  occupa- 
tions and  interests,  found  time  to  keep  her  au  courant  with 
affairs  in  Paris  by  long  letters.  "  He  made  his  Sevigne," 
as  his  friend  expressed  it,  in  a  delightful  manner.  At  the 
length  of  his  letters  the  Adams  marvelled.  In  these 
lively  pages  he  discussed  in  detail  his  own  opinions  and 
those  of  others  of  the  political  situation  at  home  and 
abroad.  No  one  who  is  interested  in  Gambetta  should 
neglect  to  read  this  correspondence. 

1  Souvenirs,  V.  76.  2  Ibid.,  VI.  212. 

3  MacMahon  had  succeeded  Thiers  as  President  of  the  French  Republic 
in  May  1873. 

*  Souvenirs,  VI.  92. 


GAMBETTA'S   EGERIA  183 

These  letters  show  how  serviceable  was  Mme.  Adam  to 
her  friend  and  to  his  party  when  conservative  machina- 
tions were  placing  the  Republic  in  great  jeopardy.  The 
year  1875  was  a  critical  year  for  the  Republic.  That  con- 
stitution, which  was  to  set  it  on  a  permanent  basis,  was 
then  being  debated  in  the  National  Assembly.  The  Presi- 
dent's powers  were  being  defined,  also  his  relations  to  the 
legislative  body,  now  consisting  of  a  lower  house,  la  chambre 
des  deputes,  and  an  upper,  the  senate,  of  which  Adam 
became  a  member.  The  lively  discussion  of  all  these 
matters,  which  took  place  in  Mme.  Adam's  salon,  she 
reproduces  in  her  Souvenirs.  To  the  disappointment  of 
republicans,  it  appeared  throughout  the  three  following 
years  that  this  constitution  had  not  placed  the  Republic  out 
of  danger.  More  than  once  the  conservatives  seemed  on 
the  point  of  substituting  for  it  some  kind  of  monarchical 
rigime. 

The  Republic's  greatest  danger  was  in  the  spring  and 
summer  of  1877,  when  MacMahon,  by  what  is  known  as 
his  coup  d'etat  of  le  seize  Mai,  brought  in  a  conservative 
ministry.  At  that  time  Mme.  Adam  was  passing  through 
the  deep  waters  of  personal  bereavement.  Edmond  Adam 
died  in  May.  But  before  his  death  he  had  been  able  to 
render  valuable  service  to  the  republican  cause  by  helping 
to  unite  the  various  sections  of  the  republican  party,  les 
vieilles  barbes  of  1848,  the  moderates  who  supported  Thiers 
and  the  extremists  who  were  led  by  Gambetta.  The 
Adams  brought  about  a  meeting  between  Gambetta  and 
Thiers.  Le  fou  furieux  and  le  vieillard  sinistre  found  them- 
selves called  upon  by  the  gravity  of  the  political  situation 
to  sink  their  differences,  and  to  unite  their  forces  in  opposi- 
tion to  MacMahon' s  reactionary  Government.  This  recon- 
ciliation practically  assured  the  triumph  of  the  republican 
cause.  Adam  had  also  been  able  to  sell  very  advantage- 
ously a  newspaper  which  Gambetta  had  recently  founded, 
La  Petite  Republique.  And  the  proceeds  of  this  sale,  so 
Gambetta  himself  admitted,  furnished  him  with  the  sinews 
of  war  for  his  political  campaign. 

On  the  evening  of  Adam's  funeral  his  friend  the  ex- 
President  Thiers,  who  himself  had  but  three  months  to 
live,  dragged  his  fourscore  years  up  Mme.  Adam's  stair- 
case. "  It  was  his  wish  and  it  is  mine,"  she  said  to  her 
visitor,  "  that  I  should  continue  his  life  in  my  own." 


184  MADAME   ADAM 

"  I  will  help  you  in  every  way  I  can,"  said  Thiers.1 
Then  he  went  on  to  impress  upon  her  the  importance  of 
uniting  their  forces  to  win  victory  for  the  cause  to  which 
Adam  had  devoted  his  life. 

There  lay  upon  the  table,  among  the  numerous  letters 
of  sympathy  Mme.  Adam  had  received,  one  from  fimile 
de  Girardin.  In  the  days  of  Mme.  d'Agoult's  salon  they 
had  been  great  friends ;  but  they  ceased  to  meet  when 
Juliette  married  Adam.  He,  it  will  be  remembered,  could 
never  forgive  Girardin  for  having  killed  in  a  duel  Armand 
Carrel,  his  friend  and  collaborator  on  the  National.  Now 
Girardin  wrote :  "  Adam  in  his  life  would  not  permit 
me  to  love  him,  will  you  permit  it  now  he  is  dead  ?  " 
"  What  am  I  to  do?  "  Mme.  Adam  asked  Thiers.  "  Let 
him  come,"  was  Thiers'  advice.  "  In  your  salon,  Girardin 
will  feel  that  he  is  absolved  from  the  guilt  of  Carrel's 
death.  .  .  .  Moreover,  you  owe  it  to  Adam  to  fill  that 
vacancy  in  our  ranks  which  his  loss  has  created." 

Mme.  Adam  acted  on  her  friend's  advice  :  she  received 
Girardin,  who  became  henceforth  a  constant  habitue  of 
her  salon,  and  one  of  the  most  valuable  assets  of  that 
Republican  party  from  which  hitherto  he  had  held  aloof. 
"  Girardin  is  detested  and  at  times  is  detestable,"  wrote 
Mme.  Adam,  "  but  his  friendship  is  the  most  faithful  and 
courageous  I  have  ever  known."  2 

Many  another  recruit  did  Mme.  Adam's  charming  per- 
suasiveness enlist  on  the  side  of  the  opposition.  The 
republican  leaders  were  constantly  appealing  to  her  to 
see  what  she  could  do  with  first  one,  then  another.  One 
evening  Gambetta  said  to  her  :  "  You  have  brought  us 
Girardin;  you  have  removed  Raoul  Duval  from  hostile 
influences ;  you  are  preserving  for  us  the  loyalty  of  many 
wavering  friends ;  you  are  enrolling  so  many  recruits,  that 
now  I  ask  you  to  do  a  very  difficult  thing — to  attract 
Gallifet  to  our  group." 3  Needless  to  say,  Gallifet  was 
won  over. 

Throughout  that  critical  summer  Mme.  Adam,  despite 
her  personal  grief,  followed  in  breathless  expectation  and 
with  feverish  interest  every  development  of  political  affairs. 
The  conservatives,  dismayed  by  the  large  republican 
majority  returned  in  1876,  persuaded  MacMahon  to  dissolve 
the  Chamber  in  the  following  June.  They  also  brought 
1  Souvenirs,  VI.  473.  *  Ibid.,  VII.  5.  3  Ibid.,  49. 


JULIETTE   ADAM    (JULIETTE   LAMBEE),    1879 


GAMBETTA'S   EGERIA  185 

pressure  to  bear  upon  the  President  so  as  to  induce  him  to 
manipulate  the  new  elections.  But  all  these  reactionary 
efforts  availed  nothing.  "  We  went  out  363,  we  shall 
return  400,"  said  Gambetta  of  the  Republican  deputies, 
and  though  this  prediction  was  not  entirely  fulfilled  the 
Republican  majority  remained  a  substantial  one,  only 
thirty-three  seats  were  lost.  On  the  night  of  the  14th  of 
October,  when  the  results  of  the  election  were  coming  in, 
Mine.  Adam  was  at  the  office  of  La  Republique  Frangaise 
in  the  salon  des  tapis  series.1  Through  the  open  door  she 
could  hear  Gambetta  calling  out  the  names  of  the  elected. 
One  of  Gambetta's  secretaries,  the  brilliant  Joseph  Reinach, 
then  a  youth  of  twenty-one,  now  and  again  came  into  the 
salon  and  confirmed  what  she  had  overheard. 

Two  months  earlier,  at  the  urgent  request  of  Thiers 
and  Gambetta,  she  had  reopened  her  salon  and  resumed 
her  Wednesday  and  Friday  dinner-parties.  Now  for  some 
days  after  this  triumphant  election  she  had  received  her 
friends  every  evening.  Gambetta  had  declared  his  readi- 
ness to  lead  the  330  republican  deputies  into  the  very 
heart  of  the  citadel.  Somehow  or  other  the  conservative 
ministers  must  be  got  rid  of.  They  on  their  part  were 
trying  to  persuade  MacMahon  to  carry  out  another  coup 
d'etat.  Gambetta  and  some  of  his  friends  were  resolved 
in  such  an  event  to  appeal  to  force.  A  discussion  on  this 
subject  took  place  in  Mme.  Adam's  salon.2  There,  one 
evening,  Girardin  announced  :  "  Fortou  is  preparing  his 
coup  d'etat."  Fortou  was  Minister  of  the  Interior  in  the  seize 
Mai  Cabinet.  "  Voisin  (Prefet  de  Police)  has  told  me," 
continued  Girardin,  "  that  at  any  moment  he  may  receive 
orders  to  arrest  us  all.  He  will  not  do  so;  he  will  send 
in  his  resignation.  But  on  the  day  of  that  resignation 
we  may  all  be  arrested.  And  no  doubt  they  will  select  one 
of  Mme.  Adam's  evenings  for  the  raid." 

'  Very  well,"  replied  the  Admiral  Jaureguiberry,  "  we 
must  prepare  to  defend  ourselves." 

"  With  arms?  "  inquired  Girardin. 

"  Why,  of  course,"  replied  the  Admiral  briefly. 

il  I  was  disappointed,"  writes  Mme.  Adam,  "to  discover 
the  timidity  of  some  who  were  present.  I  became  furious 
and  cried  out  :  '  After  all,  one  risks  nothing  worse  than 
death  in  defending  oneself.' 

1  Souvenirs,  VII.  6-7.  8  Ibid.,  VII.  78. 


186  MADAME   ADAM 

"  My  two  hands  were  seized  by  General  Billot  and  shaken 
violently,  with  an  exclamation  of '  Bravo,  comrade  ! '  which 
made  me  very  proud." 

It  was  an  amplification  of  this  scene,  doubtless,  which 
caused  the  appearance  in  one  of  the  newspapers  of  an 
article  entitled  "  Attack  on  La  Maison  Sallandrouze." 

Happily,  however,  the  expected  raid  never  took  place, 
for  civil  strife  was  averted.  MacMahon,  far  from  arresting 
Mme.  Adam's  friends,  called  on  them  to  form  a  government. 
The  Dufaure  Cabinet  came  into  office  in  December  1877. 

Most  of  the  new  ministers  were  habitues  of  Mme.  Adam's 
salon.  The  new  Minister  of  Public  Works,  M.  de  Freycinet,1 
was  Gambetta's  rival  in  her  friendship.  While  for  her 
Friday  dinner-parties  the  Great  Tribune  in  consultation 
with  his  hostess  chose  such  fellow-guests  as  were  likely 
to  serve  ce  pouvoir  occulte,  which  this  statesman  out  of  office 
was  beginning  to  exercise,  the  Wednesday  dinners  were 
known  as  "  The  Freycinet  Evenings." 

Mme.  Adam's  friendship  with  M.  de  Freycinet  has  endured 
to  the  present  day.  Already,  in  the  middle  seventies, 
"  so  bleached,"  writes  Sir  Sidney  Colvin,  "  as  to  be  known 
as  la  souris  blanche"  he  has  lived  to  be  a  member  of  the 
War  Cabinet  of  1916. 

Mme.  Adam's  widowhood  was  still  young  when  people 
began  to  speak  of  her  re-marriage.  "  Several  times  over," 
she  writes,  "  rumour  had  married  me  to  Gambetta."  Of 
another  charming  and  wealthy  Republican  widow,  Mme. 
Arnaud  de  l'Ariege,  the  same  report  was  circulated. 
"  Chacune  son  tour"  said  Mme.  Adam,  laughing,  to  her 
supposed  rival.  And  Mme.  Arnaud  replied  :  '  Yes,  but 
we  know  too  well  where  Gambetta's  affections  are  fixed 
to  believe  any  gossip  about  his  marriage  unless  it  should 
be  to  Mile.  L "  2 

Far  from  becoming  more  intimate,  as  we  shall  see  in 
the  next  chapter,  Juliette  Adam  and  Gambetta  were  now 
beginning  to  disagree.  These  differences  and  other  reasons 
made  her  think  of  leaving  Paris  before  her  accustomed 
time.  "As  I  emerge  from  my  mourning,"  she  writes, 
"  more  than  one  among  my  friends  begins  to  regard  me 
rather  as  a  woman  than  a  widow."  3     She  was  planning  a 

1  M.  de  Freycinet's  two  volumes  of  Memoirs  should  be  read  by  all  who 
are  interested  in  this  period. 

2  Souvenirs,  VII.  245.  *  Ibid.,  185. 


GAMBETTA'S   EGERIA  187 

new  novel,  Grecque ;  and  in  order  to  study  a  suitable  back- 
ground she  resolved  to  visit  Naples.  How  strained  her 
relations  with  Gambetta  were  becoming  was  proved  by 
their  farewell.  "  It  would  have  been  better  for  me  had 
you  started  a  few  weeks  earlier,"  said  her  friend.  "  Ah  ! 
if  you  had  been  able  to  play  Napoleon,  you  would  have 
been  delighted  to  give  me  un  petit  air  de  Mme.  de  Stael," 
she  retorted.1 

1  Souvenirs,  VII.  187. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

"LA  REVANCHE" 

1870—1914 

"  The  passion  of  revenge  is  habitually  over-estimated  as  a  motive, 
possibly  through  the  influence  of  the  novelists  and  playwrights  to  whom 
it  is  so  useful.  When  we  examine  man's  behaviour  objectively  we  find 
that  revenge,  however  deathless  a  passion  it  is  vowed  to  be  at  emotional 
moments,  is  in  actual  life  constantly  having  to  give  way  to  more  urgent 
and  more  recent  needs  and  feelings.  Between  nations  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  it  has  any  more  reality  as  a  motive  of  policy,  though  it 
perhaps  has  slightly  more  value  as  a  consolatory  pose.  ...  In  1870  the 
former  (France)  was  humiliated  with  brutal  completeness  and  every 
element  of  insult.  She  talked  of  revenge,  as  she  could  scarcely  fail  to 
do,  but  she  soon  showed  that  her  grasp  on  reality  was  too  firm  to  allow 
her  policy  to  be  moved  by  that  childish  passion.  Characteristically,  it 
was  the  victorious  aggressor  who  believed  in  her  longing  for  revenge,  and 
who  at  length  attacked  her  again." — Wilfred  Trotter,  Instincts  of  the 
Herd  in  Peace  and  War,  199  (1916). 

Mme.  Adam's  attitude  towards  that  policy  known  in 
France  as  la  Revanche  offers  an  emphatic  denial  to  one  of 
Germany's  numerous  misrepresentations  as  to  the  origin 
of  the  Great  War.  In  their  peace  conversations  with 
America,  as  on  many  other  occasions,  the  Germans  have 
declared  that  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  present  struggle 
was  the  Revancharde  Policy  of  France.  Nevertheless,  for 
at  least  twenty  years  before  the  war  that  policy,  which  had 
never  been  adopted  by  the  French  Government,  had  ceased 
to  be  advocated  by  the  majority  of  the  French  nation. 
One  of  the  countless  proofs  of  this  may  be  found  in  the  title 
Mme.  Adam  gives  to  the  last  volume  of  her  Reminiscences, 
Apres  V Abandon  de  la  Revanche.  About  the  year  1880 
she  began  to  find  that  those  who  advocated  la  Revanche 
were  a  constantly  dwindling  minority.  This  minority  con- 
tinued to  diminish  until,  in  the  years  immediately  preceding 
the  Great  War,  those  whose  national  hopes  were  focussed 
on  the  reconquest  of  the  lost  provinces  (for  the  word  re- 
vanche means  not  so  much  "  revenge  "  in  our  sense  of  the 

188 


1  LA  REVANCHE  '  189 

word  as  a  winning  back  of  one's  own)  came  to  number  not 
more  than  one  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population.  This 
was  that  infinitesimal  group  in  whose  Chauvinist  activities 
and  aspirations  the  German  Empire  professed  to  see  a 
menace  to  the  peace  of  Europe.  And  even  among  those 
Chauvinist  nationalists,  of  whom  Mine.  Adam  was  one  of 
the  most  fervent,  there  was  hardly  one,  certainly  not  Mme. 
Adam  herself,  who  would  have  ventured  to  advocate  an 
immediate  aggressive  war  for  the  purpose  of  reconquer- 
ing Alsace-Lorraine.  Not  even  the  leader  of  French 
militarists,  Boulanger,  desired  it.  Nevertheless,  it  was 
true  that  Mme.  Adam  and  a  few  fellow  idealists  desired 
to  see  la  Revanche  becoming  once  more  what  it  had  been 
during  the  first  decade  after  1870,  Videe  reine,  the  governing 
idea  of  France. 

La  Revanche  in  this  academic  sense  was  the  banner  of  the 
Ligue  des  Patriotes,  presided  over  by  Paul  Deroulede,  of  the 
Action  Frangaise,  a  Royalist  society  founded  by  Alphonse 
Daudet's  son  Leon,  in  collaboration  with  that  gifted  writer 
Charles  Maurras. 

But  none  of  these  people  were  practical  politicians ;  and 
none  of  them,  as  we  cannot  repeat  too  often,  advocated 
an  immediate  aggressive  war  for  the  reconquest  of  the  lost 
provinces.  They  desired  above  all  things  that  the  brethren 
from  whom  they  had  been  parted  under  such  heartrending 
conditions  should  not  feel  themselves  forgotten.  And  it 
was  for  the  sake  of  these  exiles  that  the  revanchards  pro- 
tested against  Gambetta's  counsel,  pensons  y  toujours  rien 
parlous  jamais.  They  spoke  of  them  constantly,  they 
spoke  of  them  loudly — too  constantly,  and  too  loudly, 
perhaps;  for  they  certainly  failed  to  inspire  the  majority 
of  their  compatriots  with  that  consuming  desire  for  reunion 
which  burnt  in  their  own  hearts. 

To  keep  this  idea  alive,  Mme.  Adam  has  written  and 
laboured  for  forty-five  years.  With  this  object,  as  we  shall 
see,  she  founded  a  fortnightly  magazine,  La  Nouvelle  Revue. 
In  an  article  in  this  review,  dated  September  1881,  reply- 
ing to  an  accusation  made  by  the  German  Press  that  France 
was  likely  to  appeal  to  force,  Mme.  Adam  writes  :  "  We 
have  never  ceased  to  ask  M.  Gambetta  to  remind  our 
brethren  separated  from  us  that  we  have  never  renounced 
the  hope  of  reunion  with  them."  Then  she  adds  diplo- 
matically :     "  Nothing    in    this    affirmation    need    alarm 


190  MADAME  ADAM 

Germany's  military  hegemony.  Nevertheless,  it  is  well 
for  her  to  know  that,  though  far  from  dreaming  of  a  rash 
war,  we  shall  never  be  guilty  of  the  crime  of  forgetting." 

The  wave  of  patriotic  and  nationalist  fervour,  which, 
as  the  result  of  the  Tangier  (1905)  and  Agadir  (1911)  inci- 
dents, swept  over  France  during  the  ten  years  which  pre- 
ceded this  war,  indicated  no  desire  for  aggression  even  on 
the  part  of  the  most  rabid  revanchard.  It  was  purely  for 
a  defensive  war  that  France  was  preparing  when  in  1913, 
in  reply  to  Germany's  threatening  military  measures,  she 
increased  to  three  years  the  term  of  military  service, 
which  in  1905  had  been  reduced  to  two.  By  that  time  any 
idea  of  la  Revanche  as  a  practical  measure  had  vanished 
from  the  majority  of  French  minds.1  It  was  not  on  her 
eastern  frontier  so  much  as  in  her  vast  colonial  empire  that 
France  now  saw  herself  threatened  by  Germany. 

Mme.  Adam,  still  passionately  clinging  to  the  forlorn  hope 
of  la  Revanche,  had  in  her  old  age  come  to  find  herself 
practically  alone  except  for  a  little  group  of  literary  ideal- 
ists. Her  adherence  to  this  idea,  which  had  been  renounced 
by  the  majority  of  her  nation,  explains  her  political  and 
religious  evolution  during  the  last  thirty  years. 

Previous  chapters  of  this  book  will  have  shown  how 
completely  in  accord  with  Mme.  Adam's  passionate, 
patriotic  and  energetic  disposition  was  this  persistent 
advocacy  of  la  Revanche.  Retaliation  was  in  her  blood. 
Even  as  a  child,  whenever  she  or  any  one  else  received  an 
injury  or  suffered  an  injustice  her  first  thought  had  been 
that  some  one  must  be  made  to  pay  for  it.  She  had  never 
been  able  to  take  any  wrong  lying  down.  An  eye  for  an 
eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  was  her  motto;  and  nothing 
appeared  to  her  so  humiliating  as  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  resignation. 

After  the  war  her  desire  for  retaliation  grew  into  a  con- 
suming passion.  "  I  suffer  acutely,"  2  she  writes,  "  from 
that  malady  of  defeat,  that  perpetual  pain  which  maddens 
a  Frenchwoman  who  has  been  conquered  at  every  turning 
of  the  roads  of  Alsace,  of  Lorraine,  who  has  been  crushed  at 
Sedan,  deceived  and  surrendered  at  Paris."  That  sup- 
pressed combativity  (combativite  rentree),z  which  on  the 
capitulation  of  Paris  she  felt  well-nigh  bursting  her  head 

1  See  Marcel  Sembat,  Faites  un  Roi  ou  faites  le  Paix  (1915),  passim. 
3  Souvenirs,  V.  2.  3  Ibid.,  IV.  316. 


LA   REVANCHE'  191 

and   her    heart,   pursued    her    from   February   1871   until 
August  1914. 

Mine.  Adam  argued  like  Mr.  Wells'  Letty  when  she 
believed  her  husband,  Teddy,  to  be  dead.1  You  see,  if 
he  is  dead,  then  Cruelty  is  the  Law,  and  some  one  must 
pay  me  for  his  death.  Some  one  must  pay  me.  ...  I  shall 
wait  for  six  months  after  the  war,  dear,  and  then  I  shall  go 
off  to  Germany.  .  .  .  And  I  will  murder  some  German. 
Not  just  a  common  German,  but  a  German  who  belongs 
to  the  guilty  kind.  .  .  ." 

On  much  the  same  lines  did  Mine.  Adam  reason  when 
the  iron  of  defeat  entered  into  her  soul — she,  too,  would 
exact  payment,  not  for  any  personal  wrong,  but  for  a 
national  injury ;  she  would  murder  some  German,  not  only 
of  the  guilty  but  of  the  guiltiest  kind,  the  arch-criminal 
himself— none  other  than  Bismarck.  Only  she  would 
murder  him  not  with  the  sword,  but  with  a  weapon  in  the 
handling  of  which  she  was  more  expert — with  her  pen. 
With  this  object,  as  we  have  said,  she  founded,  with  the 
fortune  her  husband  left  her,  La  Nouvelle  Revue.  In  the 
pages  of  this  magazine,  in  a  series  of  powerful  articles 
entitled,  "  Letters  on  Foreign  Politics,"  she  pursued  un- 
ceasingly the  Man  of  Iron,  revealing  his  hidden  designs, 
disclosing  his  plots,  and  warning  France  against  the  snares 
he  was  perpetually  laying  for  her. 

It  was  impossible  that  so  terrific  a  disaster  as  VAnnee 
Terrible  should  leave  any  serious-minded  French  person 
the  same  as  before  the  war.  But  it  had  not  the  same 
effect  upon  every  one.  While  most  of  Mme.  Adam's  circle 
embraced  the  policy  of  la  Revanche,  there  were  some  who, 
like  George  Sand  and  Aries  Dufour,  turned  their  hatred 
not  so  much  against  Germany  as  against  war  as  a  whole, 
and  who  found  their  internationalist  principles  strength- 
ened by  defeat.  With  such  ideas  Mme.  Adam  had  not  a 
particle  of  sympathy.  They  sundered  her  from  many  of 
her  friends.  They  caused  her  to  turn  with  more  enthusiasm 
than  ever  to  the  one  man  who  seemed  capable  of  realising 
her  hopes,  to  Gambetta,  V Homme  de  la  Revanche.  Indeed, 
Gambetta's  immense  energy,  his  marvellous  organising 
power,  marked  him  as  the  one  man  in  Europe  capable 
of  confronting  and  checkmating  that  sauvage  de  genie. 
Bismarck. 

1  Mr.  Britling  Sees  it  Through,  378. 


192  MADAME  ADAM 

But,  as  we  have  said,  Mme.  Adam's  hope  in  Gambetta 
as  V Homme  de  la  Revanche  was  doomed  to  disappointment. 
In  order  to  see  how  her  idol  came  to  be  dethroned  from  his 
pedestal,  we  must  retrace  our  steps,  returning  to  that 
critical  year  for  the  Republic,  1875. 

During  the  general  election  for  the  new  Chamber,  which 
took  place  after  the  Republic  had  been  definitely  estab- 
lished by  the  constitution  of  1875,  Gambetta  resumed  his 
provincial  tours.  The  political  bagman  addressed  immense 
audiences  at  Aix,  at  Aries,  at  Lyons.  "  I  am  rapidly  spend- 
ing the  reserves  of  rest  which  I  laid  in  at  Bruyeres,"  he 
writes  to  Mme.  Adam  on  the  17th  of  January.  A  few  days 
later  he  is  in  Paris,  then  down  in  the  south  again  at 
Marseilles,  then  up  in  the  north  at  Lille,  where  he  addresses 
four  thousand  persons.  "  Enthousiasme  indescriptible"  he 
writes.  "  I  made  a  speech  with  which  I  am  much  better 
contented  than  with  my  address  at  Aix.  I  explained  to 
them  what  our  next  majority  must  be:  republican,  demo- 
cratic, liberal,  pacific.  Those  were  the  four  heads  of 
my  sermon.  I  think  I  touched  their  hearts  and  converted 
many  unbelievers,  and  some  who  were  indifferent.  The 
town  is  decorated  with  flags.  The  streets  are  crowded, 
despite  the  severe  cold.  I  am  delighted.  I  have  ranged 
their  ranks  in  something  like  order.  All  our  friends  are 
reconciled;  and  I  count  on  having  fourteen  deputies  out 
of  the  eighteen."  x  The  republican  majority  of  the  new 
chamber  was  largely  owing  to  Gambetta' s  colossal  efforts. 
Throughout  the  election  the  Adams  had  rendered  their 
illustrious  friend  invaluable  service.  Juliette,  while  she 
was  at  Bruyeres,  in  letters  which  Gambetta  described  as 
un  vrai  rapport  de  ministre  plenipotentiaire,2  had  kept  him 
well  informed  of  the  state  of  parties  in  the  south.  Adam, 
a  well-seasoned  politician,  had  placed  at  his  disposal  all 
the  wealth  of  his  varied  political  experience.  He  had  accom- 
panied him  on  his  electoral  tours,  and  once,  on  the  occasion 
of  a  great  meeting  at  Auxerre,  Juliette  had  joined  the  party. 
Whenever  she  was  at  Paris,  Gambetta  could  always  count  on 
meeting  in  her  salon  people  who  would  be  useful  to  him. 

Every  one  of  the  triumphs  of  ce  grand  entraineur  des 
masses  Juliette  persuaded  herself  brought  nearer  the  longed- 
for  day  when  her  brethren  would  be  released  from  their 
chains  and  reunited  to  the  motherland. 

1  Souvenirs,  VI.  330.  2  Ibid.,  198. 


■  w&  ■  ■*$*£***■     ^^       ''^   -    ..,..,!l»SSi*— »• 

POUR    LAGLGIREDES    HEROS 

FOUR     L'AVENJR     DE   LA    RACE 

POUR    L'HONNEUR  DE  LA  PATRJE 

•■  '    -         •  ■      '       ■  -  ,; ;  - 


THE    DEVICE    OF    THE     CRUSADERS     WHO    ARE    LED     BY 
MADAME   ADAM   AND   OTHER   EMINENT   FRENCHWOMEN 


'LA  REVANCHE'  193 

Gambetta' s  letters  toMme.  Adam  at  this  time  show  that 
he  was  firmly  convinced  of  Bismarck's  intention  to  renew 
war.  Party  strife  in  France  he  believed  was  encouraging 
the  Chancellor  to  become  more  and  more  insolent.  Le 
dSsarroi  de  la  lutte  anarchique  de  ious  les  partis  en  France," 
he  writes,1  "  permet  au  plus  terrible  adversaire  de  Berlin  de 
nous  presser  de  plus  pres  en  attendant  quilfasse  un  supreme 
effort  pour  arracher  encore  un  lambeau  de  la  patrie." 

Gambetta  was  filled  with  despair  to  think  that  under 
such  desperate  circumstances  the  French  should  have  placed 
at  their  head  le  plus  imbecile  des  Francais.  That  at  a 
moment  when  they  needed  a  Richelieu,  a  Villars,  a  Mazarin, 
a  Danton,  or  at  least  a  Talleyrand,  they  should  have  un- 
earthed the  most  insignificant  of  the  Empire's  knights 
(retires  de  I 'empire)  and  have  confided  to  him  the  destinies 
of  the  nation.  For  Marshal  MacMahon  and  his  Govern- 
ment Gambetta  has  not  a  good  word  to  say.  And  that, 
but  for  the  intervention  of  Russia  and  England,  France  in 
1875  would  have  again  been  at  war  with  Germany,  there 
now  seems  little  doubt. 

In  a  remarkable  letter  to  Mme.  Adam,  written  on  the  24th 
of  October,  1874,2  Gambetta,  with  a  true  statesman's  in- 
sight, puts  his  finger  on  the  danger  spot  of  Europe,  wherein 
forty  years  ago  lay  the  embryo  of  this  present  conflict. 
"  The  powerful  German  Empire,"  he  writes,  "  is  suffocating 
in  Central  Europe.  With  all  its  nervous  energy  it  is  striving 
to  break  through  to  the  North  Sea.  It  must  have  shores, 
canals,  straits,  fleets,  and  a  sea-going  population.  Its 
Baltic  ports  are  too  remote  from  the  high  seas.  They  are 
in  constant  danger  of  being  choked  up.  The  straits  lead- 
ing to  them  are  narrow  and  dangerous.  To  create  a  great 
fleet  on  those  desolate  and  sandy  shores  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. Bismarck  realises  that  he  cannot  raise  Germany  to 
the  rank  of  a  first-rate  Power  without  giving  her  a  fleet  as 
formidable  as  her  army.  This  design  is  Holland's  death- 
sentence." 

And  Gambetta  goes  on  to  express  his  profound  admira- 
tion of  Holland,  which  he  has  just  visited,  and  of  the 
marvellous  energy  of  the  Dutch. 

When  the  crisis  of  1875  was  past,  when  the  elections  of 
187G  had  resulted  in  a  Republican  majority  in  the  Chamber, 
although  MacMahon  still  remained   President,   Gambetta 

1  Souvenirs,  VI.  157.  a  Ibid.,  182. 

o 


194  MADAME   ADAM 

became  more  hopeful.  At  length  the  Republic  had  been 
placed  upon  a  definite  footing.  The  four  years'  provisional 
government  was  now  over.  The  constitution  had  been 
established.  On  the  eve  of  the  election,  towards  the  end 
of  the  debates  on  the  constitution,  Gambetta  had  written 
to  Mme.  Adam  :  x  "  At  last  we  are  nearing  the  end  of  our 
difficulties.  And  despite  the  malcontents  and  the  mere 
office-seekers,  we  (i.  e.  the  republican  party)  shall  appear 
before  the  country  in  great  force,  offering  it  the  two  things 
we  had  promised — the  dissolution  of  the  Assembly 2  and  the 
Republic.  Thus  we  shall  place  the  country  in  a  position 
to  send  us  a  new  political  generation  worthy  to  complete 
the  work  and  capable  of  successfully  accomplishing  the 
regeneration  of  la  patrie." 

Throughout  the  debates  on  the  constitution,  as  we  have 
seen,  Mme.  Adam's  salon  continued  to  serve  as  a  lobby  to 
the  chamber.  Every  new  stage  in  the  progress  of  that 
republican  constitution  she  had  so  long  desired,  filled  her 
with  rejoicing.  "  On  the  24th  of  February,"  she  writes,3 
"  was  passed  the  law  establishing  the  Senate.  Imagine  our 
joy.  Imagine  the  meetings  in  our  salon.  ...  Of  course, 
as  yet  our  Republic  is  but  in  its  infancy ;  but  it  will  grow. 
And  we  are  certain  that  in  a  few  days'  time  the  law  defin- 
ing the  various  parties  of  the  constitution  will  be  passed. 
All  our  gratitude  as  old  republicans  is  due  to  Gambetta, 
who  has  conducted  the  negotiations  with  marvellous  tact 
and  diplomacy." 

Encouraged  by  the  success  of  his  labours,  Gambetta 
began  to  take  a  more  hopeful  view  of  the  European  situa- 
tion. The  crisis  of  1875  having  been  tided  over,  the  French 
army  having  attained  to  a  high  degree  of  excellent  organ- 
isation, something  approaching  universal  service  for  five 
years  having  been  instituted,  he  began  to  see  his  country 
in  a  position  to  hold  her  own  against  Germany.  Alas  ! 
how  very  far  this  was  from  being  the  case  was  born  in  upon 
Gambetta  when,  in  1877,  he  visited  that  country.  On  his 
return  Gambetta  sent  Mme.  Adam  an  account  of  his  journey. 
"  This  idea  (the  idea  of  the  German  visit),  chere  amie,"  he 
wrote,4  "  originated  with  you  in  a  friendly  conversation. 
.  .  .  We  said  to  one  another  :  '  How  useful  it  would  be  .  .  . 
to  go  to  Germany,  and  to  take  the  opportunity  afforded  by 

1  Souvenirs,  VI.  290.  2  It  had  been  sitting  since  February  1871. 

8  Souvenirs,  VI.  226.  *  Ibid.,  388, 


'LA   REVANCHE'  195 

the  manoeuvres  of  studying  on  the  spot,  and  with  one's  own 
eyes,  the  results  of  that  vast  military  organisation  of  which 
we  have  been  the  victims,  and  of  which  we  remain  the 

objective.' 

"  My  only  difficulty  was  how  to  carry  out  such  an  idea, 
how  to  observe  closely,  how  to  penetrate  everywhere 
without  exciting  attention  and  suspicion,  without  being 
recognised." 

The  simplest  plan  Gambetta  found  was  to  shave  off  his 
beard,  thus  rendering  himself— as  he  puts  it— uglier  than 
ever,  and  quite  unrecognisable  even  by  his  most  intimate 
friends. 

The  result  of  that  tour  was  to  fill  Gambetta  with  admira- 
tion of  the  work  accomplished  by  M.  de  Bismarck.  But 
he  was  quick  to  see  also  that  Germany's  prosperity  depended 
on  the  Prussian  sword.  Once  that  was  allowed  to  rust, 
then  the  whole  mechanism  of  the  German  State  would 
fall  out  of  gear.  "  The  men  of  this  nation,"  he  writes, 
"  were  well  advised  to  concentrate  their  attention  on  the 
army.  Their  efforts  have  met  with  the  most  complete 
success.  Unhappily,"  he  continues,  "  we  possess  no  force 
which  is  worthy  to  be  compared  with  the  troops  I  have 
just  seen." 

There  is  little  doubt  of  the  profound  effect  produced  upon 
Gambetta  by  this  and  other  visits  to  Germany.  They 
convinced  him  that  France  was  far  from  ready  for  la 
Revanche,  at  any  rate  for  a  revanche  by  force  of  arms.  He 
did  not,  however,  abandon  altogether  the  hope  of  regain- 
ing the  lost  provinces  by  some  diplomatic  arrangement 
with  Bismarck.  He  could  not  believe  that  Germany  would 
long  be  able  to  endure  the  enormous  burden  of  such  vast 
military  expenditure.  To  a  deputation  of  Alsatians  who 
visited  him  he  held  out  this  hope,  adding,1  "  that  the  time 
would  come  when  Germany  would  be  willing  to  enter  into 
some  friendly  agreement  with  France,  and  that  for  such 
an  agreement  there  could  only  be  one  basis." 

Meanwhile,  until  that  happy  day  should  dawn,  Gambetta 
advocated  the  strengthening  of  the  French  army.  And 
henceforth,  with  renewed  vigour,  he  never  ceased  to  urge 
on  the  Government  the  necessity  of  perfecting  everv  means 
of  defence.  No  doubt  it  was  partly  due  to  this  impulsion 
given  by  Gambetta  that  seven  years  after  his  death  the 
1  Henri  Galli,  Qambdta  et  V Alsace -Lurra vie,  p.  315. 


196  MADAME   ADAM 

German  military  attache  in  Paris  was  compelled  to  admit 
to  Prince  von  Hohenlohe  that  the  French  army  was 
superior  to  the  German.1 

But  while  France  was  improving  and  strengthening  her 
defences,  Gambetta  was  inclined  to  seek  elsewhere  com- 
pensation for  the  lost  provinces.  He  advocated  colonial 
expansion.  He  also  advocated  powerful  alliances,  notably 
with  England;  and  with  this  object  he  more  than  once 
met  the  Prince  of  Wales  (afterwards  Edward  VII)  in  Paris. 

On  every  one  of  these  points,  with  the  exception  of  the 
strengthening  of  the  army,  he  found  himself  in  disagreement 
with  Mme.  Adam.  "  If  I  did  not  regard  the  establishment 
of  a  Republic  as  an  absolute  guarantee  of  the  reconquest 
of  Alsace-Lorraine,"  she  had  said  to  Gambetta  on  the  eve 
of  the  passing  of  the  1875  constitution,  "  then  I  would  not 
support  the  Republic." 

"  I  thought  you  were  a  republican  above  all  things." 

"  No.  I  am  first  a  Frenchwoman,  then  a  passionate 
adorer  of  liberty,  then  a  republican  !  " 

"  And  you  are  always  out  of  rank,"  added  her  friend,  not 
without  impatience.2 

It  was  during  a  picnic  at  Fontainebleau  that  Mme.  Adam 
first  heard  Gambetta  advocate  the  return  of  France  to  her 
old  colonial  traditions.  It  seemed  to  Juliette  that  by  so 
doing  he  was  postponing  la  Revanche. 

"  For  love  of  France,"  she  entreated,  "  do  not  think  of 
these  diversions." 

Neither  would  she  hear  of  an  alliance  with  England. 
The  Picard  blood  ran  too  strong  in  her  veins.3  Not  until  our 
entrance  into  this  great  war  did  she  consistently  display 
sympathy  with  great  Britain.4  Even  during  the  Entente 
Cordiale  she  wondered  whether  England  would  not,  after  all, 
prove  herself  perfide  Albion.  Her  grandmother  had  taught 
her  to  mistrust  the  English,  hate  the  Prussians  and  love 
the  Russians.  As  a  young  girl  she  detested  the  idea  of 
fighting  the  Crimean  War  in  alliance  with  England;  and 
when  peace  came  she    rejoiced    that    now  France  could 

1  Prince  von  Hohenlohe,  Memoirs,  II.  405. 

2  Souvenirs,  VI.  16.  3  Ibid.,  I.  208. 

4  Her  references  to  England  in  her  articles  contributed  to  La  Nouvelle 
Revue  are  somewhat  contradictory.  When  a  commercial  treaty  between 
our  two  nations  was  on  foot,  she  would  argue  that  our  interests  are  identical. 
Generally  she  maintained  that  we  are  doomed  to  be  rivals. 


'LA   REVANCHE'  197 

return  to  friendship  with  Russia  and  enmity  with  England.1 
So  now,  if  France  must  seek  for  an  ally,  let  her  go  to 
Russia,  not  to  England.  Bismarck  was  eager  to  avert  any 
understanding  between  France  and  Russia.  For  that  very 
reason,  she  said  to  Gambctta,  we  should  seek  it.2 

As  to  Gambetta's  real  opinion  of  a  Franco-Russian 
alliance  there  is  considerable  uncertainty.  Andre  Tardieu 
in  his  book  Nos  Alliances  3  quotes  Gambetta  as  having  said 
to  a  French  Ambassador,  Chaudordy,  about  to  set  out  for 
Petrograd  :  appuyes  sur  la  Russie  et  sur  V Angleterre,  nous 
serous  inattaquables.  Mme.  Adam  tells  of  a  mysterious 
journey  she  and  her  husband  took  with  Gambetta  to 
Geneva,  where  Princess  Lise  Troubetzkoi  had  arranged  for 
him  an  interview  with  Gortschakoff.4  The  interview  did 
not  take  place,  however.  And  it  is  perfectly  clear  from 
Gambetta's  correspondence  with  Mme.  Adam  that  then, 
for  the  time  being,  at  any  rate,  he  thought  France  should 
hold  herself  free  from  any  alliances. 

"  La  France"  he  wrote  to  Mme.  Adam,  "  doit  se  tenir  a 
Vecart,  elle  doit,  tout  en  faisant  des  vceux  pour  la  paix,  ne 
Hen  f aire,  ne  rien  dire,  qui  puisse  de  pres  ou  de  loin  V engager 
mime  en  parole  avec  personnel 

"  Europe,"  he  continued,  "  had  stood  by  while  France 
was  conquered.  Let  Europe  now  arrange  her  own  affairs. 
It  was  the  turn  of  France  to  stand  aloof,  to  concern  herself 
entirely  with  her  owrn  resurrection,  to  put  her  own  house 
in  order.  When  the  day  of  her  power  and  her  strength 
returned,  then  would  be  the  time  for  her  to  make  her  voice 
heard,  and,  as  the  price  of  her  support  to  say,  '  What  will 
you  give  me?  '  On  that  day,"  wrote  Gambetta,  "  wre  may 
receive  attractive  proposals  from  a  quarter  whence  we  least 
expect  them." 

What  that  quarter  was  Mme.  Adam  knew  perfectly. 
Gambetta,  it  seemed  to  her,  overrated  Bismarck's  power 
and  influence.  Her  friend,  she  thought,  was  inclined  to 
reduce  the  wrhole  of  French  policy  to  the  mere  expectation 
of  a  day  when  from  the  Omnipotent,  from  the  quarter 
"  whence  they  were  least  expected,"  France  might  receive 
propositions.5 

Mme.  Adam  suspected  Gambetta  of  being  influenced  in 
this  direction   by  a  certain  salon  which  he  had  begun  to 

1  Souvenirs,  II.  22.  2  Ibid.,  VI.  405.  3  p.  9. 

4  Souvenirs,  VI.  272.  6  Ibid.,  405. 


198  MADAME   ADAM 

frequent.  With  a  few  exceptions,  those  of  Duclerc,  de 
Reims  and  Gambetta,  there  were  no  people  who,  after 
Bismarck,  were  more  bitterly  hated  in  Mme.  Adam's  circle 
than  Count  Henckel  de  Donnersmarck  and  his  wife,  the 
widow  of  the  Vicomte  de  Paiva.  Mme.  Adam  believed 
that  la  Paiva,  as  she  called  her,  had  been  Bismarck's  spy 
before  the  war;  and  it  was  rumoured  that  her  husband, 
the  Vicomte,  on  discovering  it,  had  hanged  himself.  Count 
Donnersmarck  was  certainly  on  the  best  of  terms  with  the 
German  Chancellor,  who  after  the  surrender  of  Metz  had 
made  him  its  Prefect.  The  holding  of  such  an  office  was 
in  itself  enough  to  make  the  Count  detested  in  Paris. 
Nevertheless,  finding  Metz  too  hot  for  him,  with  brazen 
effrontery  he  returned  to  the  French  capital  and  to  the 
mansion  in  the  Champs  Elysees,  which  before  the  war  he 
had  built  on  the  site  of  the  Jardin  des  Fleurs,  and  which 
has  now  been  converted  into  the  Travellers'  Club.  The 
rumour  that  he  had  advised  Bismarck  to  demand  five 
milliards  war  indemnity  instead  of  three  did  not  increase 
the  cordiality  of  his  reception.  And  one  of  Mme.  Adam's 
friends,  Xavier  de  Feuillant,  so  she  tells  us,  horsewhipped 
him  up  the  Champs  Elysees.1  Other  Frenchmen,  however, 
deemed  it  politic  to  cultivate  the  acquaintance  of  one  who 
was  in  Bismarck's  confidence.  And  it  was  apparently  in 
order  to  ascertain  Germany's  real  attitude  towards  France 
that  politicians  like  Thiers  and  journalists  like  Emile 
de  Girardin  accepted  invitations  to  the  magnificent  dinner- 
parties at  Paiva  House. 

To  Mme.  Adam  such  breaking  of  bread  at  an  arch-enemy's 
board  was  nothing  short  of  the  basest  treachery.  She 
wrote  to  her  friend  de  Reims,  who  had  visited  the  Don- 
nersmarcks,2  that  if  he  continued  to  frequent  Bismarck's 
agent  she  would  break  with  him  for  ever  and  deliver  him  up 
to  Xavier  Feuillant,  who  would  treat  him  as  he  had  done 
Henckel. 

Imagine  her  horror,  therefore,  when  Spuller  told  her 
that  Gambetta,  above  all  people,  had  actually  dined  at 
la  Paiva' s  table.  Spuller  swore  her  to  secrecy.  She  could 
not,  therefore,  unburden  her  mind  in  those  torrential 
reproaches  to  which  she  was  now  in  the  habit  of  treating 
her  former  hero.  But  after  Spuller  had  left  her  she  gave  way 
to  despair.     "  I  felt  something  die  within  me,"  she  writes.3 

1  Souvenirs,  V.  297.  2  Ibid.,  VI.  84.  3  Ibid.,  VII.  73. 


'LA   REVANCHE'  199 

Yet  another  blow  was  in  store  for  her ;  and  again  it  was 
Spuller's  hand  that  was  to  inflict  it.  That  Spuller  who  had 
been  and  was  still  thought  to  be  Gambetta's  devoted  friend, 
his  right  hand,  his  shadow,  his  Achates,  should  thus  have 
sowed  discord  between  Mme.  Adam  and  Gambetta  seems 
unaccountable  until  one  considers  that,  while  Spuller  was  a 
fervent  deist,  Gambetta  was  constantly  inclining  more  and 
more  to  the  extreme  anti-clerical  side,  and  to  so-called 
atheists,  represented  by  such  politicians  as  Paul  Bert. 
Further,  after  Edmond  Adam's  death  in  1877,1  if  rumours 
may  be  credited,  both  Spuller  and  Gambetta  aspired  to 
marry  his  widow.2  Adam  himself,  in  view  of  his  wife's 
impulsive  temperament,  and  well  aware  how  numerous 
would  be  the  suitors  who,  after  his  death,  would  solicit 
her  hand,  on  his  death-bed  exacted  from  her  a  promise 
not  to  remarry  for  three  years.  The  promise  was  un- 
necessary. Mme.  Adam,  who  has  always  believed  in  a  life 
after  death,  feels  that  she  and  her  husband  have  not  been 
finally  parted.  Nous  continuerons  a  vivre  notre  vie  tons 
les  deux,3  were  some  of  the  last  words  she  spoke  to  him. 
And  in  that  belief  she  has  continued  faithful  to  his  memory 
for  forty  years. 

It  was  after  Adam's  death  that  Spuller  committed  what 
one  cannot  help  regarding  as  a  treacherous  betrayal  of 
Gambetta's  confidence.  He  made  a  communication  to 
Mme.  Adam  which  for  ever  destroyed  her  belief  in  Gam- 
betta as  V Homme  de  la  Revanche.  On  the  23rd  of  Decem- 
ber, 1877,  Spuller  wrote  from  Paris  to  Mme.  Adam  at 
Bruyeres 4  that  Gambetta  was  contemplating  an  inter- 
view with  Bismarck  at  Varzin.  Let  us  say  at  once  that, 
as  far  as  we  know,  the  interview  never  took  place.  But 
that  Gambetta  ever  should  have  entertained  the  idea  was 
enough  for  Mme.  Adam.  Apparently  the  scheme  had 
originated  with  Count  Henckel  and  Prince  von  Hohenlohe,5 
then  German  Ambassador  in  Paris.  They  had  communi- 
cated it  to  Thiers  shortly  before  his  death.  He  had  passed 
it  on  to  Gambetta. 

A  few  weeks  after  she  had  received  Spuller's  letter, 
Gambetta  visited  Mme.  Adam  at  Bruyeres.     He  was  on  his 

1  Souvenirs,  VI.  472. 

2  For  those  rumours  with  regard  to  Gambetta,  see  ante,  186. 

3  Souvenirs,  VI.  471.  *  Ibid.,  VII.  112 
5  See  Henri  Galli,  Gambetta  et  V Alsace-Lorraine,   314. 


200  MADAME   ADAM 

way  from  a  conference  at  Rome  with  the  Italian  Prime 
Minister,  Crispi,  well  known  to  be  Bismarck's  fervent 
admirer  and  staunch  supporter.  Mme.  Adam  determined, 
without  betraying  Spuller's  confidence,  to  reproach  her 
friend  with  his  politique  bismarckienne.  And  in  the  last 
volume  of  her  Souvenirs  x  she  relates  that  memorable  con- 
versation in  which  she  took  him  to  task  not  alone  for  his 
abandonment  of  la  Revanche,  but  also  for  his  bitter  anti- 
clerical policy. 

They  had  been  wandering  along  the  shore  till  they  found 
themselves  on  the  point  which  forms  the  extremity  of  the 
Baie  des  Anges.  There  they  sat  down  on  a  rock.  Against 
it,  at  their  feet,  the  waves  were  beating  persistently. 

Half  joking,  half  in  earnest,  Mme.  Adam  said  to  Gam- 
betta,  "  That  sighing  wave  for  ever  repulsed  by  the  rock 
is  I." 

"  And  who  is  the  rock?  " 

"  You  and  your  perverse  foreign  policy." 

"What  policy?" 

To  avoid  a  direct  reply,  she  asked  a  question  :  "  And 
what  was  your  object  in  going  to  Rome  if  not  to  seal  your 
Crispian  and  Bismarckian  policy?" 

"  I  was  compelled  to  choose  between  two  evils  :  that  of 
national  effacement,  called  isolation,  and  that  of  partici- 
pation in  the  diplomacy  of  Europe.  I  chose  the  latter, 
because  it  furnished  me  with  a  support,  the  importance 
of  which  you  cannot  divine,  in  my  domestic  policy." 

"  I  do  divine  it,"  she  replied.  "  My  Russian  friends  tell 
me  things  which  enable  me  to  draw  my  own  conclusions. 
But,  my  dear  friend,  in  coming  to  terms  with  Bismarck 
(here  Gambetta  could  not  refrain  from  a  movement  of 
surprise,  which  Mme.  Adam  feigned  not  to  notice)  you  are 
involving  yourself  in  a  Kulturkampf  of  which  Bismarck 
himself  is  weary,  for  it  disintegrates  all  parties.  Your 
French  Kulturkampf  may  serve  Italy  and  her  feud  with  the 
papacy,  and  Victor  Emmanuel  must  have  welcomed  you 
as  a  friend.  But  it  also  benefits  Paul  Bert,  Ranc,  Ferry, 
Brisson,  Clemenceau.  Now,  although  they  may  call 
themselves  your  friends,  they,  the  two  last  especially,  have 
only  one  idea  :  viz.  to  remove  you  when  you  have  removed 
all  obstacles  to  the  rise  of  these  demagogues." 

1  Souvenirs,  VII.  121-7. 


'LA  REVANCHE'  201 

"  So  you  think  me  Bismarckian  because  I  am  anti- 
clerical." 

"  Certain  of  your  rest  rictions,  the  change  in  your  way  of 
referring  to  our  lost  provinces,  have  tortured  me.  As  soon 
as  you  refrained  from  sympathising  with  Russia  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Russo-Turkish  War,  I  concluded  that  you 
had  abandoned  the  idea  of  la  Revanche ;  for  the  only  way  to 
regain  Alsace-Lorraine  is  by  winning  the  hearts  of  nations 
whose  interests  like  our  own  render  them  the  enemies  of 
Germany  and  of  England.  This  we  may  do  by  displaying 
our  sympathy  with  those  nations  in  their  hours  of  trial." 

"  My  dear  friend,"  remonstrated  Gambetta,  "  you  must 
know  that  it  is  madness  to  think  of  reconquering  Alsace- 
Lorraine." 

"  Now ;  yes,  I  know.  But  later  ?  Duclerc,  whose  effi- 
ciency and  devotion  as  president  of  the  army  commis- 
sion you  yourself  have  so  often  admired  in  my  presence, 
constantly  tells  me  we  shall  be  ready  in  1880." 

Gambetta  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  replied  im- 
patiently— 

"  We  must  experiment  in  a  policy  of  expansion,  we  must 
conquer  or  by  a  tactful  neutrality  win  the  equivalent  of 
that  we  have  lost.  Afterwards  we  shall  see.  As  for  my  anti- 
clericalism  at  home,  so  much  the  better  if  it  furthers  my 
policy  abroad.  But  rest  assured,  it  will  not  blind  me  so 
far  as  to  risk  the  loss  of  the  advantage  to  France  of  being 
regarded  as  the  upholder  of  Catholic  traditions." 

'  To  carry  out  so  double-faced  a  policy  on  a  question 
which  is  so  vital,  surely  that  is  impossible?  " 

Gambetta  was  convinced  that  it  was  possible.  He  went 
on  to  speak  of  Italy,  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  of  his  friendship 
for  France,  provided  she  would  undertake  not  to  restore 
the  Pope's  temporal  power,  of  the  benefits  of  Italian  unity. 
"  Italy,"  said  Gambetta,  "  is  now  what  France  once  was, 
a  perfect  organisation." 

"  While  with  us,"  replied  Mme.  Adam,  "  the  loss  of  two 
of  our  organs  is  constantly  destroying  our  equilibrium  more 
and  more.  .  .  .  Never  shall  we  regain  it  until  we  have 
reconquered  Alsace-Lorraine,  as  Italy  has  reconquered 
Lombardy  and  Venetia.  Ah,  my  friend,  how  can  I  tell 
you  my  grief  at  suspecting  you  more  and  more  implicated 
with  Germany  ?  You,  our  national  defender — you,  whose 
words,  whose  acts  galvanised  in  her  humiliation  the  France 


202  MADAME   ADAM 

to  whom  you  promised  a  resurrection,  you  are  false  to 
your  mission  !  You  must  forgive  me,  but  the  cruel  words 
must  be  spoken  :  you  betray  your  destiny.  Never  will 
Bismarck  raise  you  to  that  pinnacle  of  greatness  on  which 
you  were  placed  by  your  fidelity  to  Alsace-Lorraine.  But 
I  wound  you." 

It  argues  well  for  Gambetta's  magnanimity  and  also  for 
his  patriotism  that  he  could  hear  such  reproaches  and  still 
remain  the  friend  of  her  who  uttered  them. 

"  You  cannot  wound  me,  my  dear  friend,"  he  replied. 
"  For  you  speak  to  me  as  you  must  speak — you,  an  idealist, 
whom  reality  does  not  restrain  from  arriving  at  contra- 
dictory conclusions.  .  .  .  You  follow  the  dictates  of  your 
heart,  I  of  my  reason.     We  must  each  go  our  road." 

"Mine,"  she  replied,  "is  the  national  road,  marked  out 
by  the  great  proud  past  of  my  race ;  yours  is  a  combinazione 
with  a  scoundrel." 

"  Whatever  our  differences,"  replied  Gambetta,  smiling, 
"  let  us  promise  to  remain  faithful  to  our  friendship." 

"  I  swear  it,"  she  replied. 

In  taking  that  oath  Mme.  Adam  was  sincere.  Despite 
their  disagreement  on  such  vital  matters,  she  valued  highly 
Gambetta's  friendship.  Nevertheless,  each  pursuing  so 
widely  divergent  a  road,  it  was  inevitable  they  should  drift 
apart.  The  one  great  disagreement  was  magnified  by  a 
thousand  minor  differences.  She,  who  had  first  made  him 
un  homme  du  monde,  grew  appalled  to  observe  his  increas- 
ing passion  for  luxury,  for  ostentation;  his  susceptibility 
to  the  flatteries  of  fashionable  women  who  gathered  round 
him ;  his  neglect  of  the  simple  folk  from  whom  he  had 
sprung;  his  financial  and  amorous  embarrassments.1  Now 
that  Adam  was  no  longer  at  hand  to  extricate  him  from 
the  latter,  she  did  what  she  could.  But  it  was  obvious 
to  Gambetta  that  he  had  forfeited  her  approval.  Their 
meetings  too  often  passed  in  mutual  recrimination.  Mme. 
Adam's  disappointment  in  her  former  hero  was  accentuated 
by  a  series  of  events  :  first,  when  on  MacMahon's  fall  in 
1877,  Gambetta,  instead  of,  as  she  hoped,  becoming  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic,  accepted  the  office  of  President  of 
the  Chamber;  again,  when  in  1879,  as  President  of  the 
Council,   he  roused  immense  opposition  by  the  irony  of 

1  See  Mme.   Adam's  story  of   the   "  Affaire  de   la   Rue   Roquepine," 
Souvenirs,  VII.  55-60. 


<LA    REVANCHE'  203 

appointing  as  Minister  of  Public  Worship  so  pronounced 
an  agnostic  as  Paul  Bert;  finally,  when  after  a  few  months 
in  this  highest  political  eminence  to  which  he  ever  attained, 
he  was  defeated  on  a  motion  for  electoral  reform,  and  went 
out  of  office. 

By  that  time  Mmc.  Adam  and  Gambetta  had  ceased  to 
correspond.     They  met  but  seldom. 

Of  the  mystery  which  surrounds  his  death  in  the 
December  of  1882  she  refuses  to  talk.  "  We  never  speak 
of  those  things,"  she  said  sadly,  when  one  day  at  Gif  I 
referred  to  them.  Equally  silent  is  Mme.  Adam  about 
that    veiled   figure   dominating  the   background   of  Gam- 

betta's  later  years,  that  Mile.  L.  L ,  who  never  missed 

one  of  Gambetta' s  speeches  in  the  Assembly,  whose  letters 
Gambetta  used  to  read  to  Mme.  Adam  in  the  early  years 
of  their  friendship.1 

With  her  innate  cheerfulness  she  now  prefers  to  dwell  on 
the  early  years  of  her  friend's  career,  when  as  an  ardent 
young  Bohemian  meridional  he  was  first  making  his 
appearance  in  her  salon,  or  when  at  the  height  of  his  fame 
he  kept  his  state  at  her  evening  parties,  remaining  in  an 
ante-room  apart  and  there  receiving  in  solemn  conclave 
those  whom,  as  likely  to  help  him  in  his  political  designs, 
his  hosts  thought  it  desirable  he  should  meet.  In  those 
days  he  was  still  living  with  his  old  Aunt  Tata  in  Paris, 
and  in  affectionate  intimacy  with  his  parents  and  sister  in 
the  south.  His  sister's  sons  are  to-day  as  dear  to  Mme. 
Adam  as  if  they  were  her  own.  Of  one  of  them,  Leon, 
the  younger,  who  is  now  a  cavalry  officer  at  the  front,  she 
relates  with  pride  that  he  has  sworn  to  be  the  first  to  ride 
into  reconquered  Strasbourg. 

1  See  ante,  186 ;  also  Souvenirs,  VI.  80,  and  Le  coeur  de  Gambetta,  by  Laur. 


CHAPTER   XV 


DISILLUSIONMENT 


"  Petit  a  petit,  la  guerre,  nos  malheurs,  la  Commune,  Vabandon  de  la 
revanche,  rrCauraient  detachee  du  jacobinisme  et  de  la  grande  Revolution." — 
Mme.  Adam. 

"  Vdme  de  la  France  est-elle  done  catholique,  et  ne  peut-on  etre  en  contact 
absolu  avec  elle  que  par  le  catholicisme  et  sa  plus  pure  tradition  ?  " — Ibid. 

"  Something  is  dying  within  me  "  (quelque  chose  agonise 
en  moi)  Mme.  Adam  had  written  at  the  close  of  her  most 
memorable  talk  with  Gambetta  in  1878.  That  something 
was  not  only  her  faith  in  her  friend's  determination  to 
achieve  la  Revanche,  it  was  also  her  hope  for  the  establish- 
ment of  an  ideal  Republic.  To  her  mind  the  Republic, 
for  the  sake  of  whose  stability  Gambetta  had  found  it 
necessary  to  sacrifice  la  Revanche  and  to  enter  into  an  under- 
standing with  Bismarck,  was  not  worth  having. 

"  One  does  not  make  use  of  a  Bismarck,"  x  Mme.  Adam 
had  said  to  her  friend. 

"Who  knows?"  was  his  rejoinder.  "Perhaps  it  will 
be  he  who  will  give  us  the  Republic." 

"  Then  it  would  be  fatal  to  us,"  she  replied.  And  that 
this  Republic  was  proving  fatal  to  liberty  and  fatal  to  her 
hopes  she  was  becoming  more  and  more  fully  convinced. 
"  It  is  disenchanting  us  all,  alarming  us  all,"  she  wrote. 
"It  is  disappointing  our  dreams  of  greatness  at  home  and 
showing  itself  incapable  of  any  effort  towards  heroism  and 
greatness  abroad."  2 

From  the  time  of  her  rupture  with  Gambetta  until  the 
Great  War,  Mme.  Adam  was  indeed  what  one  of  her  con- 
temporaries has  most  happily  called  her,  la  grande  desabusee 
de  la  troisieme  republique.3 

Almost  as  strongly  as  of  his  abandonment  of  la  Revanche 
did  Mme.  Adam  disapprove  of  Gambetta' s  virulent  anti- 
clerical policy.     She  began  to  agree  with  Merimee,  who, 

1  Souvenirs,  VI.  30.  2  Ibid.,  VH.  356. 

3  Arthur  Meyer,  editor  of  Le  Gaulois,  Ce  que  mes  yeux  ont  vu,  158-9. 

204 


DISILLUSIONMENT  205 

though  an  agnostic,  feared  lest  so-called  free-thinkers 
might  prove  as  intolerant  as  the  Church.  "  Do  you  think," 
he  had  said,  referring  to  the  anti-clericals  of  those  imperial 
days,1  "  that  these  men,  if  they  were  in  the  Government 
would  ever  give  you  liberty  ?  they  are  the  sons  of  Robe- 
spierre, Saint -Just  and  Marat.  If  ever  they  come  into 
power,  they  will  follow  the  example  not  merely  of  the 
Terrorists  but  of  the  Church  in  its  darkest  days.  For  they 
themselves,  the  fanatics  of  anti-clericalism,  they  are  a 
church,  smaller  than  the  other  but  equally  dogmatic." 

In  his  first  speeches  after  the  war  Gambetta  had  declared 
himself  in  favour  of  strict  liberty  of  opinion.  But,  finding 
the  Republic's  enemies  too  often  in  close  alliance  with  the 
Church,  he  had  become  embittered  against  the  Catholic 
party. 

Thirty  years  later  Combes'  bitter  attack  on  the  Church 
was  to  arouse  in  many  a  free-thinker  Catholic  sympathies. 
In  like  manner  Gambetta's  extreme  anti-clericalism  helped 
to  make  a  Catholic  of  Mme  Adam.  Towards  the  end  of 
his  life  he  tended  more  and  more  to  throw  in  his  lot  with 
the  extreme  anti-clericals  led  by  Paul  Bert,  who,  adapting 
to  the  moment  Peyrat's  famous  phrase,  le  clericalisme  6 est 
I  ennemiS  declared  le  clericalisme  cest  le  phylloxera. 

That  wily  deist  Spuller  did  not  neglect  this  further 
opportunity  of  stealing  a  march  on  his  rival.3  He  en- 
couraged Mme.  Adam  in  the  idea  that  by  waging  war 
against  the  Church  Gambetta  was  playing  Bfsmarck's 
game,  and  helping  the  Chancellor  to  carry  on  in  France  the 
Kulturkampj  he  was  conducting  with  so  much  vigour  in 
Germany.  Had  not  Gambetta  himself  admitted  that  the 
Kulturkampf  had  changed  the  whole  aspect  of  the  struggle 
against  the  Church  ! 4  In  France,  he  had  come  to  re^rd 
the  separation  between  the  Church  and  State  as  an  almost 
necessary  condition  of  any  durable  alliance  with  the  Italian 
kingdom.  "  As  long  as  we  remain  the  eldest  daughter  of 
the  Church,"  he  said  to  Mme.  Adam,5  "  the  papacy  will 
rely  upon  our  support,  and  this  will  inevitably  endanger 
our  friendly  relations  with  Italy." 

Gambetta's  attitude  in  these  vital  matters  was  certainly 
changing  his  friend's  religious  point  of  view.  She  was 
beginning  to  feel   that   she   could   no  longer,  as  in  1866, 

\  nSTvit m' 15'        I Ibid" VL  128,        3  Ibid" VIL  48-  ' 


206  MADAME   ADAM 

describe  herself  as  a  pagan  and  an  anti -clerical.1  Then  to 
oppose  the  Church  had  been  to  oppose  the  Empire.  Now  it 
seemed  to  her  that  to  oppose  the  Church  was  to  unite  with 
Bismarck.  The  Catholic  traditions  of  her  country  were 
beginning  to  appeal  to  her.  "  I  remembered,"  she  writes,2 
"  how  for  centuries  Catholic  France  had  been  superbly 
patriotic,  how  for  centuries  the  association  between  God 
and  the  King,  God  and  la  patrie,  had  perhaps  been  more 
essential  than  I  had  ever  believed." 

Already  she  had  travelled  far  from  the  days  of  the  siege 
of  Paris,  when,  in  admiration  of  the  nuns'  fearlessness  during 
the  small-pox  epidemic,  she  had  reflected,  "  Ought  not  my 
philosophy  to  give  me  as  much  courage  as  they  derive  from 
their  religion?  "  3 

By  a  strange  contradiction  Mme.  Adam's  passion  for 
revenge  was  carrying  her  towards  a  religion  whose  Founder 
had  refused  to  countenance  such  a  sentiment.  But  in 
wending  her  way  Romewards  she  was  obeying  not  so  much 
the  dictates  of  reason  as  ancestral  voices,  impulses  arising 
from  her  subconscious  self,  beckonings  from  that  Catholic 
past  which  is  never  far  removed  from  any  child  of  France. 

The  years  1876  and  '77  were  dark  years  for  Juliette  Adam. 
They  had  reft  from  her  George  Sand,  her  father,  Dr.  Lam- 
bert, and  then  her  husband.  Dr.  Lambert  had  died  early 
in  1876,  while  his  daughter  was  at  Bruyeres.  Mme. 
Sand's  death  occurred  on  the  8th  of  June.  In  the  August 
of  the  following  year,  it  fell  to  Mme.  Adam's  lot  to  perform 
a  melancholy  mission.  George  Sand,  shortly  before  her 
death,  had  expressed  a  wish  that  her  study  should  remain 
under  lock  and  key  for  one  year,  at  the  end  of  which  it 
should  be  opened  by  her  son  Maurice  and  Juliette  Adam. 
For  this  purpose  Mme.  Adam  went  to  Nohant,  where  she 
found  awaiting  her  a  strange  and  sorrowful  experience. 
When  the  seal  was  broken,  there  was  the  study  just  as 
George  Sand  had  left  it,  with  a  partly  finished  manuscript 
on  the  desk,  with  the  arm-chair  half  turned  round  as  when 
its  occupant  had  risen  from  it  for  the  last  time.  During 
those  moments  the  spirit  of  the  departed  seemed  to  come 
very  near  to  her  friend. 

By  that  time  Mme.  Adam  was  a  widow.  Her  husband 
had  died  in  the  previous  May.  Throughout  her  bereave- 
ment, there  was  no  one  to  whom  she  turned  more  willingly 
1  Souvenirs,  III.  86.  2  Ibid.,  VII.  380.  a  Ibid.,  IV.  119. 


DISILLUSIONMENT  207 

for  consolation  than  to  Adam's  friend  Thiers.  He  never 
tired  of  hearing  her  talk  about  her  husband,  whom  he  had 
known  long  and  intimately,  and  whom  he  had  never 
failed  to  appreciate.  But  three  months  after  Adam's 
death,  Thiers  followed  him  to  the  grave. 

"  Blow  after  blow  falls  upon  me,"  writes  Mmc.  Adam. 
"  Thiers'  loss  creates  another  blank  in  my  life." 

Her  buoyant  cheerfulness,  however,  her  unquenchable 
hopefulness,  her  innate  optimism  would  not  permit  her 
to  remain  long  a  prey  to  grief  and  melancholy.  If  earthly 
things  disappointed  her,  if  she  failed  to  find  here  below 
the  fulfilment  of  her  hopes,  the  realisation  of  her  dreams, 
then  she  would  look  elsewhere.  She  refused  to  be  alto- 
gether disappointed.  With  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  she 
felt  that  she  had  wept  too  much  in  this  life  not  to  believe 
in  another.  Henceforth  she  began  to  dwell  more  and 
more  on  that  other  world,  of  faith  in  which  her  paganism 
had  never  succeeded  in  depriving  her.  With  her  the 
unseen  had  ever  been  vividly  present. 

Her  exuberant  Celtic  imagination  had  projected  itself 
into  the  spirit  world.  She  believes  that  her  grandmother 
appeared  to  her  after  her  death,  and  that  many  important 
events  of  her  life  have  been  prophesied  to  her  by  some 
soothsayer,  palmist  or  somnambulist.  She  herself  used  to 
tell  fortunes ;  and,  at  the  close  of  her  evening  receptions, 
to  a  few  favoured  guests,  Gambetta,  Girardin,  Spuller.  for 
example,  who  liked  to  linger  after  the  rest  had  gone,  she 
would  predict  the  future  by  cutting  cards.  But  her  own 
soothsaying  must  not  be  taken  too  seriously.  For  she 
admits  she  was  glad  to  take  this  opportunity  of  telling  some 
home  truths,  and  giving  to  her  friends  useful  advice  which, 
administered  in  any  other  way,  might  have  offended  them. 
Gambetta  was  frequently  the  recipient  of  such  counsel. 
The  cards,  for  instance,  warned  him  that  by  a  meeting  as 
"  diabolical  as  that  of  Christ's  temptation  on  the  mountain  " 
he  was  risking  the  loss  of  his  prestige.1  He  was  also 
enjoined  to  beware  of  women  and  their  advice.  Some 
would  dash  him  into  the  abyss  of  ruin,  he  was  told,  while 
others  would  raise  him  on  to  dizzy  heights  no  less  danger- 
ous. He  was  bidden  to  be  a  lover  and  a  friend,  but  to  choose 
only  men  for  his  confidants.  Refusing  to  recognise  in 
such  warnings  anything  but  the  advice  of  the  fair  necro- 
1  (Souvenir*,  VII.  164. 


208  MADAME   ADAM 

mancer  herself,  Gambetta  replied  mischievously,  "  You  are 
rather  hard  on  yourself.  But  perhaps  it  is  in  order  that 
you  may  be  still  harder  on  others." 

In  the  past,  the  main  object  of  Mme.  Adam's  adoration 
had  been  la  patrie.  So  it  will  continue  to  be  until  the  end. 
In  her  pagan  days,  after  la  patrie,  she  had  adored  the  gods 
and  heroes  of  Greece  and  Rome.  They  had  represented 
to  her  the  ideals  of  a  civilisation  which  she  regarded  as  the 
highest  and  most  complete  to  which  humanity  has  yet 
attained.  When  Mme.  Adam  became  a  Christian  the  gods 
and  heroes  of  antiquity  made  way  for  Christ  and  His  Saints, 
and  for  Mme.  Adam's  patriotic  soul  first  among  the  latter  is 
Jeanne  d'Arc.1  For  even  now  la  patrie  remains  enthroned 
in  the  first  place  in  her  hierarchy.  Indeed,  she  has  returned 
to  the  Catholic  Church  chiefly  because  thus  she  hopes  best 
to  fulfil  her  mission  as  a  patriotic  Frenchwoman.  "  I 
believe,"  she  said  to  me,  "  that  a  true  French  patriot  can 
no  more  escape  being  a  Catholic  than  can  a  truly  patriotic 
Turk  escape  being  a  Mussulman."  Nevertheless,  that  it 
may  not  always  be  easy  to  reconcile  patriotism  and  religion 
is  suggested  by  the  following  letter,  which  Mme.  Adam 
wrote  in  reply  to  my  inquiry  as  to  her  views  of  the  reputed 
pro-German  attitude  of  the  present  Pope — 

"  Abbaye  de  Gif, 
"  14.ii.16. 

".  .  .  .  Pour  le  Pape — Je  suis  catholique,  apostolique 
et  romaine.  Revenue  aux  croyances  de  ma  granaVmere.  .  .  . 
Vous  comprendrez  que  je  rial  pas,  si  tardive  croyante,  le 
droit  de  discuter  les  actions  du  St.  Pere.  Mais  mes  vozux 
itaient  pour  le  Cardinal  Rampolla,  que  V Autriche  detestait 
et  que  la  France  eut  tant  aime  !  La  encore  je  dois  me  taire. 
Vous  pouvez  seulement  dire  a  quel  point  mes  vceux  accom- 
pagnaient  le  Cardinal  Rampolla,  que  j'avais  la  jierte  de 
connaitre." 

We  have  seen  how  Mme.  Adam's  father  had  brought  her 
up  in  communion  with  the  Hellenic  soul ;  how  in  Mme. 
d'Agoult's  salon  she  delighted  to  fraternise  with  those 
enthusiastic  Hellenists,  de   Ronchaud,  Paul   Saint-Victor, 

1  Technically,  Jeanne  d'Arc  is  not  a  saint.  At  present  she  is  only 
"  blessed,""  having  not  yet  attained  to  the  third  and  final  stage  of 
canonisation. 


o\ 


j'j^XAX^   0U>&/y* 


(1885) 


DISILLUSIONMENT  209 

and  Louis  Menard.  After  her  rupture  with  Mme.  d'Agoult, 
and  throughout  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  intervening  years, 
this  Grecque  ressuscitee,  as  Victor  Hugo  used  to  call  her,  had 
never  ceased,  whenever  she  met  her  Hellenic  friends,  with 
them  to  live  and  move  and  have  her  being  in  the  world  of 
ancient  Greece.  Together  they  dreamed  of  seeing  estab- 
lished in  France  what  they  described  somewhat  vaguely  as 
"  the  Athenian  Republic."  Together  they  welcomed  the 
advent  of  those  young  poets,  "  the  incomparable  Parnas- 
sians," whom  Menard  fathered,  Francois  Coppee,  Sully 
Prudhomme,1  Heredia,  Alphonse  Daudet,  Baudelaire,  Vil- 
liers  de  l'lsle  Adam,  Anatole  France  and  Lecomte  de  Lisle. 
Mme.  Adam  had  been  delighted  when  Gaston  Paris  brought 
to  her  salon  that  wonderful  Sully  Prudhomme,  who  from 
a  workman  in  Creusot's  factory  had  developed  into  a  poet, 
scholar  and  philosopher.2  Volume  by  volume,  as  they 
appeared,  she  devoured  Lemerre's  edition  of  the  Parnas- 
sians' collected  works,  becoming  every  day,  she  writes, 
sauf  quelques  reserves,  a  convinced  admirer  and  an  ardent 
propagandist  of  the  new  school  of  poets.3 

The  reserve  she  referred  to  was  this  :  she  could  not  bring 
herself  to  admire  the  marmoreal  immobility  cultivated  by 
the  Parnassians.  "  lis  ne  revent  pas  comme  moi,"  she  writes,4 
"  de  draperies  flottantes  au  vent  qui  souffle  du  golfe  de  Phalere 
ou  du  mont  Hymette  :  Us  veulent  le  pli  statuaire,  ?noi  je 
Vaime  vivant" 

One,  who  attended  Mme.  Adam's  reception  when  her 
salon  was  at  the  height  of  its  political  influence,  tells  how 
eager  she  was  to  withdraw  from  political  discussion  when- 
ever an  opportunity  offered  of  talking  about  Greece  and 
things  Greek. 

Her  three  best  novels,  La'ide,  Grecque  and  Paienne,  are 
inspired  throughout  by  these  Hellenic  sympathies.  In  a 
delightful  article  on  Le  Nfo-Hellenisme,5  Jules  Lemaitre,  that 
most  eminent  of  French  critics  since  Sainte-Beuve,  bestows 
high  praise  on  this  triology  of  novels,  which  he  describes  as 
"  a  rare  effort  of  sympathetic  imagination."  Nevertheless, 
though  in  all  sincerity  Mme.  Adam  strove  hard  to  attain  to 
the  Greek  point  of  view,  a  mind  so  essentially  actual  as  hers 
could  not  fail  to  introduce  a  certain  modernity  into  her 

1  Souvenirs,  III.  106.  »  Ibid.,  36,  37. 

3  Ibid.,  106.  ■  Ibid.,  VII.  404-5. 

8  Les  Contemporains,  lero  s6rie,  119-64. 
P 


210  MADAME   ADAM 

portrayal  of  what  seemed  to  her  the  Greek  atmosphere  and 
temperament.  As  Lemaitre  points  out,  in  these  novels  every 
passion,  every  impression,  every  phrase,  is  obviously  three 
thousand  years  older  than  a  line  of  Homer,  twenty-four 
centuries  older  than  a  line  of  Sophocles. 

Mme.  Adam,  with  her  antipathy  to  everything  Gothic, 
Teutonic  and  mediaeval,  may  try  to  cultivate  a  dislike  of 
romanticism,  she  remains  notwithstanding,  and  her  criti- 
cism of  the  Parnassians  quoted  above  proves  it,  a  roman- 
ticist, the  child  of  Chateaubriand  and  Mme.  de  Stael.  She 
may  try  to  ignore  the  Middle  Ages,  but  she  cannot  suppress 
them.  And  Jules  Lemaitre  may  well  inquire  whether 
"  if  the  whole  Middle  Ages  had  not  groaned  and  bled 
beneath  the  Cross  Mme.  Juliette  Lamber  would  be  able  to 
rejoice  so  rapturously  in  her  Greek  gods."  For  the  vague 
paganism  of  that  day  depends  for  its  very  existence  on  the 
Christianity  of  which  it  was  the  negation.  The  paganism 
of  Mme.  Adam  and  her  friends  was  provoked  by  the  Chris- 
tian's emnity  to  all  things  carnal.  It  was  a  protest  in 
favour  of  that  joie  de  vivre,  of  that  physical  beauty,  of  those 
natural  joys  which  the  mediaeval  Christian  had  condemned 
as  the  works  of  the  devil.  When  life's  joyfulness  began  to 
fade,  Mme.  Adam,  like  so  many  others,  turned  to  Chris- 
tianity. She  had  always,  as  she  had  confessed  to  Littre 
at  Mme.  d' Agoult's  dinner-party,1  had  the  will  to  believe. 

"  Would  you  know  how  and  why  I  became  a  Catholic, 
then  you  must  read  Chretienne"  said  Mme.  Adam.  And 
indeed  this  novel  describes  her  conversion  from  paganism 
to  Christianity.  Here  we  see  how  that  adoration  of  Greece, 
which  she  owed  to  her  father's  up-bringing  had  ceased  to 
be  a  living  inspiration,  how  it  had  been  relegated  to  the 
past.  That  old  conflict  of  her  childhood  between  her 
father's  paganism  and  her  grandmother's  Christianity  re- 
curring, resulted  in  her  grandmother's  influence  gradually 
alienating  her  soul  from  Greece,  and  transforming  into 
a  mere  literary  preference  what  was  once  a  religious 
inspiration. 

Chretienne  is  the  sequel  to  Paienne.  The  two  novels 
tell  the  story  of  a  beautiful  Frenchwoman,  Melissandre. 
She  is  married  to  a  heartless  rake,  whom  she  has  never 
loved,  a  M.  de  Noves.  She  has  a  lover,  a  gifted  painter, 
Tiburce.     Both  novels  are  in  the  form  of  letters.     They 

1  See  ante,  69. 


DISILLUSIONMENT  211 

contain  few  incidents.  But  they  tell  the  story  of  a  con- 
suming passion,  which  in  Pa'ienne  burns  with  fierce  ardour 
and  in  Chretienne  cools  down  into  serene  affection.  The 
death  of  the  husband,  M.  de  Noves,  which  occurs  in  a  duel 
at  the  close  of  Paienne  does  not,  as  one  might  expect,  lead 
to  the  lovers'  immediate  marriage.  Before  the  consumma- 
tion of  their  legal  union  intervenes  the  whole  of  ( lirHlenne. 
For  religious  misgivings,  which  have  arisen  in  the  heart  of 
Melissandre,  cause  her  to  banish  her  lover  for  a  while.  He 
goes  to  Greece.  She  remains  in  France.  In  the  interval, 
Melissandre  and  Tiburce,  who  had  both  been  fervent  pagans, 
fall  under  Catholic  influences,  which  convince  them  that 
their  Hellenic  ideals  are  only  to  be  cherished  so  far  as  they 
lead  to  Christ.  In  the  words  of  Tiburce,  they  follow  "  the 
great  pagan  "  St.  Paul  on  the  road  to  Damascus.1  And  not 
until  they  have  been  received  back  into  the  Church  of  their 
fathers  do  they  become  man  and  wife. 

In  these  two  books  Mmc.  Adam  brilliantly  displays  one  of 
her  most  eminent  literary  gifts,  which  she  has  shown  in  all 
her  writings  :  her  passion  for  the  beauties  of  nature  and 
her  power  of  describing  them.  It  was  their  love  of  nature 
that  had  first  attracted  her  to  the  Greeks. 

The  idea  of  race  has  ever  played  a  dominant  part  in  Mme. 
Adam's  mentality.  "Je  suis  Gauloise,  je  suis  Grecque, 
Latine,  mais  Hen  d'autre,"  she  writes.2  In  returning  to 
Christianity  she  flattered  herself  that  she  was  returning 
to  the  traditions  of  her  race,  to  the  Roman  Church  which  she 
regards  as  the  highest  expression  of  Latin  culture,  and  of 
that  Mediterranean  tradition,  which  embodies  all  that  she 
loves  and  respects,  and  which  is  the  direct  antithesis  to 
the  northern  tradition,  to  the  Kultur  of  Berlin.3  Bismarck 
she  hated,  not  only  as  the  conqueror  of  France  and  the 
persecutor  of  Catholics,  but  as  the  sworn  foe  of  Latin 
culture.  Spuller  had  told  her  that  the  Chancellor  had  a 
horror  of  everything  Latin,  that  in  his  Kulturkampj he  was 
warring  not  merely  against  the  religious  idea,  but  against 
Latin  influence  in  letters,  philosophy  and  art.4 

1  Chretienne,  224.  2  Souvenirs,  III.  401. 

3  Hanotaux,  Histoire  de  la  France  Contemporaine,  I.  504. 
*  Souvenirs,  VII.  395-6. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

"  LA    NOUVELLE    REVUE  " 

1879—1899 

"  La  Nouvelle  Revue  devait  itre  le  foyer,  de  Videe  de  la  revanche  et  le 
lien  de  reunion  de  la  France  regeneree.n — Leon  Daudet. 

"  La  Nouvelle  Revue  .  .  .  was  to  be  the  organ  of  the  young  Republic  in 
periodical  literature." — Richard  Whiteing. 

Intensity  is  a  dominant  note  of  Mme.  Adam's  nature.  It 
characterises  alike  her  hatred  and  her  loves,  her  prefer- 
ences and  her  prejudices.  While,  as  Gambetta  remarked, 
she  lets  her  rancour  run  dangerously  near  ferocity,1  she 
treasures  her  friendships  as  the  most  precious  gifts  of  the 
gods.  Nothing  pleases  her  better  than  to  help  her  friends. 
"  The  surest  way  to  my  friendship,"  she  declares,  "  is  to 
ask  me  to  render  some  service." 

Sitting  next  to  Edmond  de  Goncourt  at  one  of  Alphonse 
Daudet's  dinner-parties,  she  said,  "  I  have  a  hundred 
friends  .  .  .  and  that  is  about  the  number  I  need.  .  .  . 
I  am  always  grateful  to  people  who  make  demands  on  me. 
It  is  my  life.  .  .  .  My  energy  loves  to  be  serviceable." 
She  has  ever  been  ready  to  wear  herself  out  in  the  cause 
of  the  unfortunate,  pour  sHnteresser  aux  pauvres  diables, 
as  her  friend  Leon  Daudet  expresses  it.  I  find  in  one  of 
her  letters  to  me  this  sentence  :  "  Chacune  de  vos  lettres 
m' attache  mater  nellement  a  vous  ;  cest  ainsi  que  faime  le 
plus."  In  another  letter  she  expresses  this  very  charac- 
teristic sentiment  :  "  Cest  tout  de  suite  ou  jamais  avec 
moi.  Vous  avez  senti  quavec  vous  cetait  tout  de  suite." 
At  a  glance  she  has  always  decided  whether  she  likes 
or  dislikes  a  person.  If  the  former,  then  she  gives  her 
confidence  absolutely  and  completely.  But  woe  to  the 
unhappy  wight  whom  she  finds  in  any  fundamental  matter 
unworthy  of  that  confidence.     "  I  don't  envy  any  one  who  is 

1  Souvenirs,  VII.  87. 
212 


'LA   NOUVELLE   REVUE'  213 

Mme.  Adam's  enemy,"  said  Changarnier.     "  But,"  replied 
Jules  de  Lasteyrie,  "  I  do  envy  any  one  who  is  her  friend." 

In  everything  which  concerns  the  welfare  of  her  friends 
Mme.  Adam  takes  the  deepest  interest.  I  shall  never 
forget  her  solicitude  for  my  safety  in  my  numerous  war- 
time Channel  crossings.  Immediately  the  Sussex  went 
down,  she  wrote  asking  if  I  knew  any  one  who  was  on 
board.  As  the  submarine  menace  grew  more  serious, 
whenever  I  returned  to  England  she  would  bombard  me 
with  letters  and  postcards  clamouring  to  be  assured  of 
my  safety  :  "  Chere  amie,  ecrivez-moi  vite  que  vous  etes 
bien  arrive" e  " ;  then  another  card  :  "  Chere,  tres  chere 
amie,  je  vous  supplie  de  m  envoy ez  ce  simple  mot  sur  une 
carte  '  arrivee'  "  Finally,  after  the  torpedoing  of  a  French 
man-of-war  and  the  loss  of  the  crew  of  six  hundred,  she 
writes  :  "  II  ne  faut  plus  venir  en  France  sans  une  necessite 
absolue,  car  je  crois  que  les  affreux  Boches  ajouteront  des 
crimes  a  leurs  crimes."  In  another  letter  she  had  written  : 
"  Le  dieu  teuton  demande  des  crime  journalieres.'''' 

Some  of  the  most  entrancing  pages  of  Mme.  Adam's 
Souvenirs  tell  the  story  of  her  literary  friendships  with 
Victor  Hugo,  Gustave  Flaubert,  Alphonse  Daudet.  It 
was  in  friendship  that  she  found  her  greatest  consolation 
at  the  time  of  Adam's  death.  Gambetta  was  with  her 
when  the  doctor  gave  up  all  hope  of  his  recovery.  "  I 
shall  return  this  evening,"  said  her  friend,  "  and  many  of 
us  will  come."  Her  husband  during  his  last  days  liked  to 
know  that  she  was  receiving  as  usual.1 

As  the  breach  between  Mme.  Adam  and  Gambetta 
widened,  her  salon  underwent  a  change.  Its  mistress, 
disappointed  with  politics,  turned  more  and  more  to  her 
artistic  and  literary  friends.  "  If  in  politics  there  is  much 
to  sadden  me,"  she  wrote,2  "  I  have  my  literary  consola- 
tions." Coquelin  was  now  to  be  found  frequently  at  her 
receptions,  so  were  the  Alsatian  painter,  Henner,  the 
battle-painter,  Detaille,  and  Carolus  Duran. 

"  My  salon  is  quite  changed,"  she  writes,  "  but  it  is 
no  less  lively  than  of  yore.  Conversation  has  gained  in 
brilliance  what  it  has  lost  in  weight."  3  Artists,  authors, 
sculptors,  musical  composers  were  delighted  to  meet  one 
another;  and  the  politicians  who  still  visited  her  were 
pleased  to  se  dSpolitiquer. 

1  Souvenirs,  VI.  470.  »  Ibid.,  VII.  241.  3  Ibid.,  331. 


214  MADAME   ADAM 

In  this  transformed  salon  there  gradually  materialised 
an  idea  which  Mme.  Adam  had  long  cherished. 

Even  before  the  war  it  had  more  than  once  been  sug- 
gested to  the  Adams  that  they  should  found  a  review. 
George  Sand,  while  she  was  visiting  Bruyeres,  had  tried 
to  induce  her  host  and  hostess  to  start  a  fortnightly 
magazine  which  might  rival  La  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes, 
from  the  tyranny  of  whose  editor,  Buloz,  she  was  suffering 
much.  "  Adam,"  she  argued,1  "  has  been  a  journalist, 
you  are  literary.  He  with  his  critical  gift  and  sound 
common  sense  would  be  an  ideal  editor,  you  with  your 
zeal  and  your  passion  for  admiring  would  discover  new 
talent ;  you  would  revel,  as  I  have  always  done,  in  the 
joy  of  bringing  others  into  notice." 

But  Adam  was  too  much  of  a  politician  to  entertain 
the  idea  of  inaugurating  a  publication  which  should  have 
a  strong  literary  as  well  as  political  strain.  After  Adam's 
death,  however,  George  Sand's  wrords  often  recurred  to 
his  widow. 

She  first  communicated  her  idea  to  Flaubert.  That 
consummate  master  of  literary  style  had  never  made  much 
money  by  his  books.  Mme.  Adam,  who  had  been  his 
friend  for  years,  was  seriously  distressed  by  his  financial 
embarrassments,  which  he  had  vainly  tried  to  conceal 
from  her.  His  pride  rendered  him  one  of  the  most  difficult 
people  to  help.  But  Mme.  Adam,  with  his  friends  Taine, 
Tourguenieff,  and  others,  succeeded  in  persuading  Jules 
Ferry,  then  President  of  the  Chamber,  to  appoint  Flaubert 
librarian  of  the  Arsenal  Library.  It  was  when  he  came 
to  thank  Mme.  Adam  for  her  kindness  in  this  matter  that 
she  broached  to  him  the  subject  of  a  magazine,  in  which 
he  should  be  "  the  master  of  masters,"  if  he  would  agree 
to  contribute  one  article  a  month.2 

"  What  !  "  he  exclaimed  in  horror;  "  like  that — by  the 
yard,  so  much  a  line  !  " 

"  No,"  she  replied,  "  so  much  the  word,  the  letter  ! 
For  anything  by  Flaubert  is  gold,  it  is  rubies." 

"  That  is  enough,"  he  interrupted.  "  When  I  have 
completed  my  revision  of  V Education  Sentimentale,  of 
which  I  am  publishing  a  new  edition,  I  will  finish  Bouvard 
et  Pecuchet,  and  you  shall  have  that." 

"  You  will  swear  it?  " 

1  Souvenir     III.  227.  2  Ibid,  VII.  321. 


'LA   NOUVELLE   REVUE'  215 

"  I  swear  it." 

Flaubert  was  greatly  taken  with  the  idea  of  the  new 
venture.  He  demanded  a  place  in  the  review  for  his 
young  disciple,  Guy  de  Maupassant.  Littre,  too,  approved 
of  the  enterprise.  He  agreed  to  write  articles  on  philo- 
sophy. But  Girardin  was  appalled  at  the  capital  such  an 
undertaking  would  require.  Mme.  Adam  was  known  to 
be  wealthy,  her  husband  having  left  her  a  considerable 
fortune.  Nevertheless,  so  many  other  similar  enterprises — 
La  Revue  Nationale,  La  Revue  Germanique,  La  Revue  de 
Paris — had  foundered  miserably,  having  failed  to  hold 
their  own  against  the  veteran  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes. 
Girardin  had  grave  doubts  as  to  the  possibility  of  success. 
Nevertheless,  he  thought  it  an  excellent  idea  to  replace 
the  waning  influence  of  her  salon  by  that  of  a  review  in 
which  she  could  say  anything  and  criticise  everything. 
He  advised  her  to  found  a  company,  in  which  she  should 
take  half  the  shares ;  and  he  himself  promised  to  become 
a  shareholder. 

Gambetta  Mme.  Adam  found  far  from  encouraging. 
"  Whatever  is  this  mad  idea  of  founding  a  review?  "  he 
exclaimed. 

"  Nothing  is  more  serious,"  she  replied.  "  As  repub- 
lican politics  seem  to  have  resolved  themselves  into  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  a  distribution  of  rewards,  my  political 
salon  has  ceased  to  interest  me.  It  is  about  to  be  trans- 
formed into  a  literary  salon  with  the  solid  support  of  a 
review." 

"  You  won't  carry  on  your  review  for  six  months,"  he 
retorted.  ..."  You  don't  know  what  you  are  under- 
taking. How  could  a  woman  ever  possess  enough  authority, 
knowledge,  energy,  and  business  faculty  to  direct  a  review  ?  " 
Gambetta  carefully  ignored  the  famous  Revue  Inter- 
nationale, founded  and  successfully  edited  for  some  years 
by  Napoleon's  I.'s  great-niece,  Mme.  Ratazzi,  better  known 
by  her  nom  de  guerre  of  "  Baron  Stock." 

"  My  dear  friend,"  replied  Juliette  Adam,  "  will  you 
take  the  trouble  to  remember  this  ?  I  shall  carry  on  my 
review  for  twenty  years,  and  I  shall  introduce  to  my  readers 
twenty  new  authors." 

The  question  of  the  title  puzzled  her  for  some  time. 
Then  she  writes — 

"  Tiens,  fai  trouvi  mon  titre  La  Nouvelle  Revue.     Ce 


216  MADAME   ADAM 

litre  me  plait  et  plait  a  tons.  Je  Vai  tant  cherche,  et  il  est 
venu  tout  seul." 

Her  old  friend  Laurent  Pichat,  one  of  those  who  had 
always  recommended  Adam,  "  that  millionaire  in  wisdom 
and  moderation,"  as  he  called  him,  to  found  a  review, 
threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  project.  "  You 
cannot  have  too  many  contributors,"  he  said. 

It  was  chiefly  among  the  young  authors  and  writers 
that  these  contributors  were  recruited.  "  Our  review," 
they  called  it,  for  them  it  was  founded.  One  of  its  main 
objects  was  to  give  the  chance  to  the  young  and  the 
unknown  which  La  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  denied  them. 

But,  as  we  have  seen,  many  of  Mme.  Adam's  old  friends 
were  also  to  be  represented  in  its  pages  :  Challemel- 
Lacour,  Spuller,  and  her  fellow-Hellenists  Saint-Victor 
and  de  Ronchaud.  Nothing  pleased  her  more  than  the 
interest  taken  in  it  by  M.  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps,  a  new 
acquaintance  whom  she  owed  to  Girardin. 

Another  of  her  great  acquisitions  was  Alphonse  Daudet, 
the  writer  who  to  her  seemed  more  essentially  French 
than  any  other  author  of  that  day.  She  considered  him 
the  equal  of  Balzac  and  Flaubert.  She  had  hardly  dared 
to  hope  for  his  collaboration.  All  the  greater,  therefore, 
was  her  joy  when  he  assured  her  that  any  project  destined 
to  help  forward  young  writers  might  count  on  his  support. 
And  Daudet  was  not  one  to  give  his  name  alone.  As 
long  as  he  lived  the  editress  of  La  Nouvelle  Revue  found  in 
him  one  of  her  most  trusted  supporters. 

But  the  course  of  editing,  like  that  of  true  love,  does 
not  always  run  smooth;  and  Mme.  Adam  had  her  dis- 
appointments. One  of  these  was  Taine's  refusal  to  col- 
laborate. On  the  29th  of  March,  1879,1  he  wrote  excusing 
himself  on  account  of  bad  health  and  absence  from  Paris. 
Though  he  was  by  no  means  devoted  to  La  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes,  he  reminded  the  new  editress  that  when  an 
attempt  had  been  made  fifteen  years  earlier  to  give  that 
journal  a  rival,  it  had  been  calculated  that  such  a  project 
could  not  be  realised  in  less  than  six  years,  and  would 
necessitate  an  expenditure  of  a  million  of  francs. 

Mme.  Adam  hoped  to  carry  out  her  design  in  two  years, 
and  with  an  expenditure  of  five  hundred  thousand  francs. 
On  this  basis  and  before  the  summer  of  1879  was  over, 
1  Souvenirs,  VII.  365. 


'LA  NOUVELLE   REVUE'  217 

the  company  had  been  formed.  In  June,  Mme.  Adam 
had  left  her  Paris  flat  for  a  house  in  the  Pare  de  Sechan 
at  Montmorency.  But  on  a  lower  floor  of  the  Maison 
Sallandrouze  she  established  the  office  of  the  review.  All 
through  July,  August  and  September  she  was  busy  buying 
paper,  negotiating  with  printers,  making  all  the  prepara- 
tions for  her  first  number,  which  was  to  appear  on  the 
1st  of  October. 

Her  salon — all  that  was  left  of  it,  for  she  had  little 
time  for  receiving  visitors  either  at  Montmorency  or  at 
La  Maison  Sallandrouze — was  becoming  more  and  more 
le  Salon  de  la  Nouvelle  Revue.  "  Je  suis  tout  a  la  littira- 
ture"  she  writes.1  On  her  editor's  desk  were  accumulating 
piles  and  piles  of  MSS. — poems,  plays,  stories,  novels, 
political  articles. 

There  was  no  lack  of  contributors.  "  Les  adhesions  me 
viennent  en  foule,,,  she  writes.2  "  All  those  who  are  suffer- 
ing from  disillusionment,  who  are  indignant  to  see  our 
politicians  prefer  their  personal  interests  to  the  national 
cause,  come  to  me."  On  the  whole,  she  displayed  in  her 
choice  of  contributors  a  certain  eclecticism.  Among  her 
earliest  collaborators  we  find  women  as  well  as  men, 
Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics,  not  only  Frenchmen  but 
foreigners,  the  Russian  novelist  Tourguenieff,  the  Spanish 
statesman  Castelar,  the  Hungarian  general  Turr,  the 
Italian  publicist  Gioia,  the  Turk  Abdul-Hakk,  while 
English  letters  were  represented  by  Sidney  Colvin.  Sarcey 
and  Theodore  Reinach  were  to  contribute  literary  articles, 
Theuriet,  Francois  Coppee,  Lecomte  de  Lisle  poetry, 
General  Gallifet  and  Paul  Marchand  military  articles, 
Joseph  Reinach  political.  Science  was  represented  by 
Camille  Flammarion  and  Stanislas  Meunicr,  history  by 
Thierry  and  Gebhart,  mythology  by  Elie  Reclus,  fiction 
by  Erckmann-Chatrian,  and  others  whose  names  are  to-day 
less  known. 

The  first  number  appeared,  as  announced,  on  the  1st  of 
October,  1879.     It  received  an  excellent  welcome. 

The  main  object  of  the  review  was  avowedly  nationalist, 
to  glorify  France.  "  With  all  my  heart  and  soul,"  writes 
the  editor,3  "  I  am  determined  to  make  my  review  a 
credit  to  French  letters,  a  reflection  of  republican  dis- 
interestedness, patriotism  and  dignity.  What  should  I 
1  Souvenirs,  VII.  404.  2  Ibid.,  366.  »  Ibid.,  392. 


218  MADAME   ADAM 

do  .  .  .  did  I  not  feel  that  I  am  about  to  create  a  work 
which  shall  be  essentially  republican  and  liberal?  " 

Disappointed  by  the  Government's  abandonment  of  the 
policy  of  a  territorial  revanche,  Mme.  Adam  set  her  heart 
on  realising  la  revanche  intellectuelle.  The  more  she  thought 
of  gathering  together  all  the  talents,  the  more  forcibly 
was  she  impressed  by  the  intellectual  vigour,  the  scientific, 
literary  and  artistic  superiority  of  her  country.  "  Notre 
France  est  grande,"  she  exclaims.  "  But  every  one  plunders 
her,  and  no  one  dreams  of  making  her  wealth  known.  This 
is  what  I  shall  do." 

Gambetta,  realising  how  far  they  had  drifted  apart, 
betrayed  not  a  little  anxiety  as  to  the  political  line  she 
was  likely  to  follow. 

"  Shall  you  be  as  hostile  to  me  as  you  are  to  my  policy  ?  " 
he  asked.1 

"  The  home  truths  that  I  can  no  longer  tell  you  in  my 
salon  I  shall  certainly  tell  you  in  my  review,"  she  replied. 

"  Why,  this  is  practically  a  declaration  of  war,"  he 
exclaimed. 

"  No,  it  is  a  proclamation  of  independence." 

In  her  opening  address  to  her  readers  she  did  not  fail 
to  appear  as  la  grande  desabusee.  Disappointed  with  party 
politics,  she  looked  forward  to  a  time  when  party  strife 
should  cease  and  politics  rise  into  the  serene  air  of  social 
science.  For  the  next  twenty  years  of  her  life  Juliette 
Adam,  or  Juliette  Lamber,  as  she  still  signed  herself, 
was  to  live  her  life  in  La  Nonvelle  Revue.  Henceforth  her 
editorial  duties  absorbed  her  too  completely  to  permit  of 
her  taking  notes  of  conversations  and  keeping  the  diary 
which  she  has  reproduced  in  her  Souvenirs.'1  The  last  of 
her  seven  volumes  of  reminiscences  closes  with  the  in- 
auguration of  La  Nouvelle  Revue. 

Not  content  with  a  nominal  editorship,  Mme.  Adam 
worked  conscientiously  in  her  office,  herself  reading  most 
of  the  MSS.  sent  in.  Methodically  planning  out  her  time, 
she  rose  early  to  read  MSS.,  receive  contributors,  dictate 
to  secretaries.  She  saw  her  milliner  at  breakfast,  dis- 
patching the  meal  and  her  orders  together.  To  avoid 
wasting  precious  moments  in  trying  on  her  own  garments, 
she  would  criticise  their  fit  on  a  dummy,  another  famous 
mannequin  a"  osier,  moulded  exactly  to  her  shape.     Then 

1  Souvenirs,  VII.  324.  *  Apres  V  Abandon  de  la  Revanche. 


'LA   NOUVELLE   REVUE'  219 

her  work  would  be  resumed  until  it  was  time  for  the  after- 
noon drive  and  dinner,  followed  by  a  party  or  the  play. 
The  small  hours  of  the  morning  often  found  her  again  at 
her  desk. 

Such  an  expenditure  of  energy  could  not  possibly  con- 
tinue indefinitely  without  a  breakdown.  There  came  a 
time  when  the  doctor  offered  the  alternative  of  rest  or 
death.  But  Mme.  Adam  has  always  been  one  of  those 
who  would  willingly  die  at  her  task.  She  prefers  to  wear 
out  rather  than  to  rust  out.  The  doctor  found  his  warn- 
ing unheeded,  consequently  he  changed  his  tactics.  When 
he  threatened  her  with  the  loss  of  her  good  looks,  she 
immediately  gave  way.  Leaving  the  review  in  the  hands 
of  a  competent  editor,  she  took  several  months'  rest; 
and  when  she  returned  to  her  directorship  it  was  no  longer 
to  work  writh  the  feverish  energy  of  yore.  By  that  time 
she  was  surrounded  by  a  band  of  talented  and  zealous 
helpers,  les  jeunes  whom  she  had  discovered  and  to  whom 
she  could  entrust  much  of  the  personal  supervision  which 
in  earlier  years  had  devolved  upon  her  alone.  One  of 
these  lieutenants  was  M.  Leon  Daudet,  the  son  of  her 
friend  Alphonse,  and  to-day  editor  of  V Action  Frangaise. 
In  his  book,  V Entre-deux-Guerres,  published  in  1915, 
M.  Daudet  draws  to  the  life  la  grande  Frangaise,  whom 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century  he  has  been  proud  to  call  ma 
chere  patronne. 

He  illustrates  Mme.  Adam's  social  tact  in  the  story  he 
tells  of  a  dinner-party  at  his  father's  house.  That  evening 
the  guests  were  the  Due  d'Aumale,  M.  de  Freycinet,  the 
General  de  Gallifet,  Magnard,  editor  of  the  Figaro,  the 
ill-fated  Calmette,  who  was  to  succeed  him,  and  about 
twenty  others.  Henry  James  used  to  say  that  French 
dinner-parties  always  somewhat  resemble  a  session  of  the 
Convention.  And  at  this  party  the  noise  of  debate  waxed 
especially  high,  for  the  talk  fell  on  a  subject  still  delicate  : 
the  Commune.  And  the  discussion  might  well  have  cul- 
minated in  more  than  one  of  the  invited  sending  his  repre- 
sentatives next  morning  to  some  fellow-guest,  had  not 
Mme.  Adam  skilfully  smoothed  down  the  angles  of  con- 
troversy and  finally  led  the  conversation  on  to  less 
dangerous  ground. 

Fulfilled  beyond  her  greatest  expectations  were  Mme. 
Adam's  hopes  that  her  review  might  serve  young  writers 


220  MADAME   ADAM 

and  French  literature  by  revealing  new  talent.  For  it 
was  in  the  pages  of  this  magazine  that  French  readers 
first  became  acquainted  with  many  of  les  jeunes  who 
to-day  occupy  the  very  first  rank.  Pierre  Loti,  Paul 
Bourget,  Marcelle  Tinayre  and  Anatole  France  are  some 
of  those  who  in  La  Nouvelle  Revue  first  began  to  climb 
the  ladder  of  fame.  Here  appeared  Pierre  Loti's  first 
novel,  Le  Mariage  de  Loti,  followed  by  Le  Roman  a"un 
Spahi  and  Fleurs  d'Ennui.  Those  Essais  de  Psychologie 
Contemporaine,  which  many  regard  as  Paul  Bourget's 
most  valuable  contribution  to  French  letters,  Mme.  Adam 
had  the  honour  of  publishing  in  1884,  as  well  as  several 
of  the  same  author's  early  novels  :  V Irreparable,  Deuxieme 
Amour,  Cruelle  Enigme,  Crime  a" Amour,  which  all  appeared 
in  the  early  eighties.  Many  years  later,  in  1898,  advised 
by  Alphonse  Daudet,  who  had  read  the  manuscript,  Mme. 
Adam  introduced  to  her  readers  the  first  novel  of  that 
gifted  woman  writer,  Marcelle  Tinayre. 

One  of  Mme.  Adam's  first  meetings  with  Anatole  France 
was  in  1879,  when  they  travelled  together  to  a  party  given 
by  La  Societe  des  Gens  de  Lettres  in  Edmond  About' s  park 
at  Malabry.  Then,  as  we  may  well  imagine,  Mme.  Adam 
was  so  charmed  by  the  gifted  young  French  author  that 
she  enrolled  him  among  les  jeunes  of  her  review;  and  in 
the  next  year  appeared  in  its  pages  Le  Crime  de  Sylvestre 
Bonnard,  followed  two  years  later  by  Le  Petit  Bonhomme, 
which  was  to  be  published  in  volume  under  the  title  of 
Pierre  Noziere. 

Mme.  Adam  and  Anatole  France  remained  friends  until 
the  Dreyfus  affair.  Then,  like  so  many  other  friends, 
they  parted  company.  Mme.  Adam's  nationalism  involved 
antagonism  to  the  Jews,  whom  she  believed  incapable  of 
espousing  the  cause  of  any  race  but  their  own.  It  involved 
also  a  belief  that  the  army  can  do  no  wrong.  Hence  she 
regarded  as  final  the  court-martial's  condemnation  of 
Alfred  Dreyfus.  Anatole  France,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
was  at  that  time  le  grand  homme  of  a  famous  Semitic  salon, 
became  a  fervent  Dreyfusard.  The  Affaire  resulted  in  a 
curious  reshuffle  in  French  social  and  political  life.  M. 
France  found  himself  ranged  with  some  who  had  once 
been  his  enemies.  One  of  these  was  Emile  Zola.  In  the 
past,  his  gross  realism  had  outraged  the  classical  and 
aristocratic  taste  of  M.  France  as  much  as  it  had  that  of 


'LA  NOUVELLE   REVUE'  221 

Mine.  Adam.  But  now,  battling  in  a  common  cause, 
these  two  former  foes  found  one  another  by  no  means 
antipathetic.  While  reconciled  with  old  enemies,  how- 
ever, M.  France  found  himself  parted  from  old  friends; 
not  from  Mme.  Adam  only,  but  from  one  who  had  been 
a  close  comrade  of  his  earlier  literary  career,  from  Paul 
Bourget.  With  Pierre  Loti  and  with  her  whom  they 
were  both  proud  to  call  their  intellectual  mother,  M. 
Bourget  took  the  nationalist  side.  He  also,  disappointed 
with  the  Republic's  failure  to  realise  his  ideals,  was  turn- 
ing Romewards.  We  may  regard  him,  with  Mine.  Adam, 
as  the  firstfruits  of  that  Catholic  revival  which  was  to  be 
the  dominant  note  of  French  intellectual  society  in  the 
early  twentieth  century. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

VIEWS    ON    FOREIGN    POLITICS 

1878—1917 

"La  Politique  exterieure  qui  a  toujour s  ete  la  grande  preoccupation,  le 
grand  apprentissage  de  ma  vie." — Mme.  Edmond  Adam,  Souvenirs,  VII. 
218. 

A  fortnight  after  the  appearance  of  the  first  number 
of  La  Nouvelle  Revue,  on  the  17th  of  December,  1879, 
Emile  de  Girardin  gave  a  dinner-party ;  un  diner  de  gala 
it  was  called  by  Mme.  Adam,  who  was  one  of  the  guests. 
Among  other  distinguished  persons  present  were  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Gladstone  and  Gambetta.1  At  dessert  the  talk  fell 
on  the  new  review ;  and  Mr.  Gladstone  asked  the  editress 
what  were  its  objects. 

"  I  have  three,"  she  replied :  "  to  oppose  Bismarck,  to 
demand  the  restoration  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  and  to  lift 
from  the  minds  of  our  young  writers  the  shadow  of  depres- 
sion cast  by  national  defeat  by  giving  them  fame  ten  years 
earlier  than  they  would  otherwise  have  acquired  it." 

"  And  you  expect  to  accomplish  your  three  objects?  " 
Mr.  Gladstone  inquired. 

"  Perhaps  not  all  of  them,"  replied  Mme.  Adam.  "  But 
of  one  thing  I  am  certain  :  that  I  shall  see  Bismarck's 
fall  during  the  existence  of  the  review." 

"  Gambetta,  who  was  listening,"  adds  Mme.  Adam, 
"  smiled  defiantly  at  these  words.  Gambetta,  qui  ecoutait, 
eut  un  sourire  et  un  regard  de  defi."  He  may  have  smiled. 
But  it  is  more  than  probable  that  his  defiant  air  existed 
alone  in  his  friend's  imagination.  For,  as  she  herself  has 
frankly  confessed  elsewhere,  Gambetta  was  never  malicious.2 

"  What  are  you  yourself  going  to  write  in  your  review  ?  " 
Gambetta  asked.  "  Doubtless  you  will  appropriate  foreign 
politics."  3  Gambetta  was  right.  And  by  no  means 
the  least  valuable  and  striking  contributions  to  the  review 
were  those  fortnightly  letters  on  foreign  politics — Lettres 

1  Souvenirs,  VII.  419.  2  Ibid.,  VI.  312.  3  Ibid.,  324. 

222 


VIEWS   ON   FOREIGN   POLITICS       223 

sur  La  Politique  Exterieure,  which  for  twenty  years  Mme. 
Adam  never  ceased  to  contribute,  and  which  she  continued 
to  write  for  some  months  after  the  magazine  had  passed 
out  of  her  hands.  Her  last  letter  appeared  in  June  1900. 
In  1916  she  collected  all  her  articles  bearing  on  Bismarck 
and  his  policy  and  published  them  in  a  volume  entitled 
L ' Ileure  Vengeresse  des  Crimes  Bismarckiens.  Her  articles 
on  the  Emperor  William  II  have  likewise  been  collected  and 
published  in  book  form  under  the  title  of  Guillaume  II. 
(1890-1899). 

In  everything  Mme.  Adam  wrote  throughout  these 
one-and-twenty  years,  la  Revanche  was  the  dominating 
idea.  Nevertheless,  we  cannot  too  often  repeat  that 
which  we  have  said  in  a  foregoing  chapter  :  x  she  never 
advocated  an  aggressive  war  with  Germany,  even  for  the 
purpose  of  regaining  the  lost  territory. 

In  1887,  at  the  close  of  the  Schncebele  Incident,  one  of 
those  Teutonic  pin-pricks  by  which  Germany  was  for  ever 
stirring  up  French  hostility,  Mme.  Adam  wrote  in  La 
Nouvelle  Revue  :  2  "  Whatever  our  enemy  may  think,  his 
neighbours  on  the  west  have  long  ago  lost  their  craving 
for  the  battle-field.  Thither  they  no  longer  hasten  madly ; 
but  thither  if  attacked  they  will  march  resolutely." 

Mme.  Adam's  object  in  perpetually  harping  on  la 
Revanche  was  to  keep  France  in  a  state  of  preparedness 
for  the  attack  she  felt  convinced  could  not  fail  to  come, 
and  also  to  assure  her  brethren  in  Alsace-Lorraine  that 
they  had  not  been  forgotten.  Her  policy  was  the  reverse 
of  Gambetta's  pensons  y  toujours  ri en  parlons  jamais. 
She  believed  in  for  ever,  in  season  and  out  of  season, 
speaking  and  writing  of  la  Revanche. 

La  Revanche  was  by  no  means  the  only  subject  on  which 
Juliette  Adam  and  Gambetta  had  fundamentally  disagreed. 
They  had  differed,  for  instance,  on  the  question  of  the 
attitude  which  France,  after  her  defeat,  should  assume 
towards  Europe,  notably  at  the  time  of  the  Berlin  Congress, 
in  1878. 

The  place  of  the  meeting  alone  would  have  sufficed  to 
provoke  Mme.  Adam's  hostility  to  the  Congress.  For 
France,  at  the  conqueror's  bidding,  to  go  to  his  capital 
there  to  discuss,  without  mentioning  her  own  wrong,  the 

1  See  ante,  189. 

2  JJHeure  Vengeresse  des  Crimes  Bismarckiens,  100. 


224  MADAME   ADAM 

affairs  of  Europe  on  the  basis  of  the  status  quo,  seemed  to 
la  grande  Francaise  nothing  but  a  new  humiliation.  And 
this  view  finds  justification  in  Professor  Oncken's  con- 
tribution to  the  Cambridge  Modern  History.1  Here,  in 
accents  of  pride,  the  German  Professor  describes  the 
Congress,  which  brought  statesmen  from  every  European 
country  to  the  capital  of  the  new  empire,  as  a  magnificent 
acknowledgment  of  the  position  of  Germany,  and  one 
of  Bismarck's  greatest  achievements.  One  cannot  help 
sympathising  with  Mme.  Adam's  patriotism  when  she 
protests  against  a  French  contribution  to  this  new  crown 
of  glory  for  the  German  Empire. 

While  Gambetta  argued  that  France,  by  standing  out 
of  the  Congress,  would  lose  in  prestige,  Mme.  Adam  main- 
tained that  she  would  gain  by  standing  aloof  as  a  Power 
which  it  was  necessary  to  win  over.  Moreover,  she  told 
Gambetta  that  her  friend,  Cialdini,  the  Italian  Ambassador 
in  Paris,  had  assured  her  that  if  France  should  refuse  to  be 
represented  at  the  Congress  Italy  would  follow  her  example. 

Such  having  been  Mme.  Adam's  attitude  towards  the 
Congress  from  the  beginning,  she  naturally  inclined  to 
find  fault  with  all  the  decisions  and  arrangements  made 
at  Berlin. 

She  was  in  Rome  when  the  Congress  closed  on  the  13th  of 
July.  "  Jour  nefaste,"  she  writes,  "  s'il  en  jut  jamais. 
he  Congres  de  Berlin  se  termine.  V encouragement  aux 
troubles,  aux  ambitions  futures  est  signe."  2  And  now  that 
well-nigh  forty  years  have  passed  she  still  regards  ce  jour 
nefaste  as  a  black-letter  day.  "  Le  Congres  de  Berlin"  she 
wrote  only  last  year,  "  ma  bete  noire,  Vun  des  deux  motifs 
pour  lesquels  je  me  suis  brouillee  politiquement  avec  mes 
meilleurs  amis."  3 

As  Russia's  faithful  friend  4  and  the  ardent  advocate  of 
a  Franco-Russian  alliance,  Mme.  Adam  strongly  resented 
Russia's  treatment  at  Berlin.  She  suspected  that  one  of 
Bismarck's  ideas  in  summoning  the  Congress  had  been  to 
rob  Russia  of  the  fruits  of  her  victories  in  the  Russo- 

1  Vol.  XU.  143.  2  Souvenirs,  VII.  204. 

8  Article  in  Le  Gaulois,  February  20,  1916. 

*  The  Russian  Revolution  has  but  served  to  strengthen  Mme.  Adam's 
friendship  for  Russia.  In  a  letter  which  appeared  on  April  4,  1917,  in 
the  Oaulois  and  other  French  papers,  she  writes,  "  Mon  activite  passionnee 
servirajusqu'a  mes  derniers  jours  la  Russie  slave,  les  Yougo-slaves,  la  cause 
Tcheque." 


VIEWS   ON   FOREIGN   POLITICS       225 

Turkish  War.  She  saw  that  as  a  result  of  the  Congress 
Russia  had  become  as  isolated  in  the  East  as  was  France 
in  the  West.  That  Russians  were  themselves  of  this 
opinion  was  proved,  when  on  leaving  Berlin  the  Russian 
Chancellor  Gortchakoff  declared  "  the  Congress  to  have 
been  the  darkest  page  in  his  career." 

Gambetta's   attitude   towards   Russia   has   puzzled   not 
a  lew.     It  must  ever  be  difficult  to  discover  the  personal 
views  of  so  opportunist  a  statesman.     "  The  real  truth 
about  Gambetta  s  life,  death  and  opinions  will  never  be 
known,     said  recently  one  of    those  with  whom  he  was 
most  intimately  acquainted.     In  his  early  conversations 
with  Mme.  Adam  he  annoyed  her  extremely  by  his  mis- 
trust of  Russia,  which  he  shared  with  most  French  Radicals 
of  that  day   and  which  resulted  from  Russia's  autocratic 
Government  and  her  treatment  of  the  Poles.     For  Mme 
Adam,  to  be  the  enemy  of  Germany  was  to  be  the  friend 
or  Kussia         Anti-allemande  passionnee  et  violente,  fetais 
logiquement  Slavophile,"  she  writes.1      And  in  one  of  the 
numerous  quarrels  with  Gambetta  at  the  time  of  his  pro- 
posed  interview  with   Bismarck,   she   confesses  that   she 
^  d**  h™  ^is  inusuIt  '    "  You  are  Prussian,  I  remain 
Cossack        But  Gambetta  was  well  inured  to  such  venom- 
ous words  from  his  too  candid  friend;    and  the  patient 
endurance  with  which  he  suffered  them  speaks  volumes 
both  for  his  equanimity  and  for  Mme.  Adam's  powers  of 
fascination.  * 

If  France  must  needs  emerge  from  her  isolation  and  form 
an  alliance  with  some  European  Power,  Gambetta  would 
have   preferred  that   Power  to   be   England   rather  than 
Russia       Mme    Adam,  animated  by  her  Picard  dislike  of 
Ung  and,  unable  to  forgive  us  for  standing  aloof  in  1870 
would  not  hear  of  an  English  Alliance.     There  came  a  time' 
however  vvhen  Gambetta  began  to  see  that  both  an  English 
and   a   Russian   alliance   might   be   necessary   to   protect 
France  against  German  aggression.     Dimly  foreshadowing 
the   Triple  Entente  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,   he 
began  to  overcome  his  dislike  of  Russia.     Writing  to  Mme 
Adam  in  January  1877,*  he  says  in  reference  to  Russia's 
alarm  at  Bismarck  s  designs  on  the  Baltic  Provinces  •  "  Le 
ressentimentest  flagrant  chez  les  Russes,il  s'agit  del' exploiter." 
Gambetta,  however,  does  not  take  to  himself  the  credit  of 
1  Souvenirs,  VI.  166.  a  ibtf,.,  440. 


226  MADAME   ADAM 

originating  the  idea  of  the  Franco-Russo-British  Entente. 
In  his  recently  published  letters  to  his  friend  and  supporter 
Ranc,1  he  ascribes  this  idea  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  (after- 
wards Edward  VII),  whom,  in  February  1878,  he  met  more 
than  once  at  the  Cafe  Anglais.  By  the  Prince's  insight 
into  European  politics  Gambetta  was  deeply  impressed. 
In  this  matter  he  was  far  from  sharing  the  views  of  a  recent 
English  writer  on  King  Edward.2  Was  that  growing 
passion  for  luxury,  that  love  of  fashionable  life,  which 
Mme.  Adam  so  frequently  deplores,  casting  a  spell  over 
Gambetta  and  warping  his  judgment  so  far  as  to  make 
him  attribute  to  his  royal  acquaintance  opinions  which 
were  really  his  own?  We  cannot  say.  But  at  any  rate, 
in  this  letter  to  Ranc,  Gambetta  describes  His  Royal 
Highness  as  predicting  that  Russia  would  find  her  political 
aspirations  in  the  Near  East  thwarted  by  Austria,  that 
Austria  would  influence  Roumania,  that  together  Austria, 
Roumania  and  Turkey  would  ally  themselves  against 
Russia.  "  What  a  conflict !  "  exclaims  Gambetta.  "  Never- 
theless, this  is  what  the  Prince  of  Wales  foresees.  He 
does  not  share  that  hostility  to  Russia  which  animates 
part  of  his  nation.  With  all  his  young  authority  he 
opposes  any  measures  likely  to  injure  Russia.  He  has  in 
him  the  stuff  of  a  great  statesman." 

That  Gambetta  over-rated  the  Prince's  "  young  au- 
thority "  (jeune  autorite)  will  be  obvious  to  all  acquainted 
with  the  British  constitution,  and  to  those  who  know  what 
was  the  position  accorded  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  during 
his  mother's  reign. 

The  enthusiasm  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  for  Russia  ought 
to  have  pleased  Mme.  Adam.  But  she  does  not  record 
that  Gambetta  confided  it  to  her,  although  he  spoke  to  her 
frequently  of  his  meetings  with  the  Prince.3  Gambetta 
protested  to  her  that  the  Prince  was  far  from  being  what 
rumour  represented  him,  a  mere  festoyeur.  "  He  loves 
France  seriously  as  well  as  gaily,"  said  Gambetta.  "  His 
great  dream  of  the  future  is  an  understanding  (une  entente) 
with  us." 

Thereupon  Mme.  Adam  rejoined  bitterly  :    "  We  know 

1  See  Le  Matin,  29  December,  1915. 

2  See  Sir  Sidney  Lee's  article  on  King  Edward  in  the  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography. 

3  Souvenirs,  VII.  15,  16,  146. 


VIEWS   ON  FOREIGN   POLITICS       227 

what  an  understanding  with  England  brings  to  any 
country,  which  is  so  simple  as  to  enter  into  it." 

In  those  days,  when  Disraeli  was  Prime  Minister,  Mme. 
Adam  regarded  what  she  described  as  "  the  insatiableness 
of  Great  Britain  "  with  an  apprehension  almost  as  grave 
as  that  inspired  by  her  fear  of  Germany.  While  for  our 
liberal  statesmen,  for  Mr.  Gladstone  and  John  Bright 
notably,  she  had  a  profound  admiration ;  Lord  Beacons- 
field  and  Lord  Salisbury  she  regarded  as  hand  and  glove 
with  Bismarck. 

It  was  with  this  triumvirate,  she  believed,  and  not 
without  reason,1  that  had  originated  at  Berlin  an  idea, 
which,  realised  three  years  later,  was  to  prove  disastrous 
not  to  France  alone,  but  to  the  peace  of  Europe.  This 
idea  was  the  French  occupation  of  Tunis.  The  colonisation 
of  Tunis  had  long  been  an  Italian  dream.  To  northern 
Africa  Mazzini  had  directed  the  ambitions  of  his  country- 
men as  early  as  1838. 2  Probably  British  statesmen,  by 
suggesting  Tunis  to  France  merely  intended  to  give  her 
something  which  should  atone  to  her  for  the  British 
occupation  of  Cyprus.  But  Bismarck  had  other  de- 
signs :  he  wished  above  all  things  to  distract  French 
attention  from  the  north-eastern  frontier.  As  later  he 
was  to  say  to  a  French  diplomatist  :  "  Go  to  Morocco,  it 
will  help  you  to  forget  Alsace-Lorraine,"  so  now  for  the 
same  reason  he  encouraged  France  to  go  to  Tunis.  But 
there  is  little  doubt  that  when  he  gave  this  encouragement 
the  wily  fox  at  Varzin  was  entertaining  a  yet  subtler 
design  :  already  he  had  come  to  an  understanding  with 
Austria,  and  to  the  German- Austrian  Entente  he  was  eager 
to  add  Italy.  By  embroiling  Italy  with  France  he  hoped 
to  achieve  this  object,  and  he  succeeded.  The  year  after 
the  French  occupation  of  Tunis,  Italy  joined  Germany 
and  Austria;  and  on  the  20th  of  May,  1882,  the  Triple 
Alliance  was  concluded.  Its  formation  and  its  periodic 
renewal  3  rendered  yet  more  imperative  the  conclusion  of 
the  Triple  Entente.  And  it  will  generally  be  admitted 
that  one  of  the  causes  of  the  present  conflict  lies  in  this 

1  See  Tardieu,  La  France  et  Ses  Alliances,  46. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  99. 

3  Signed  at  first  for  five  years,  it  was  renewed  in  1887  for  another  five 
years,  in  1891  for  six  or  twelve,  in  1902  for  another  six  or  twelve;  and, 
as  we  know,  it  endured  for  the  longer  term,  until  1914. 


228  MADAME   ADAM 

unfortunate,   though   possibly   inevitable,   arrayal   of  the 
great  European  Powers  in  two  hostile  camps. 

Here,  therefore,  in  the  French  colonisation  of  Tunis, 
we  have  an  event  fraught  with  momentous  consequences. 
How  did  Mme.  Adam  regard  it  ?  In  the  last  volume  of 
her  Souvenirs,  which  we  must  remember  were  compiled 
nearly  twenty  years  later,  she  sees  in  it  one  of  Bismarck's 
designs  for  the  ruin  of  France.  But,  in  her  articles  con- 
tributed at  the  time  to  La  Nouvelle  Revue,  it  is  interesting 
to  find  her  refusing  at  first  to  believe  in  the  possibility  of 
any  alliance  between  Italy  and  Austria.  Bismarck  may 
plot  if  he  likes;  buu  in  that  direction,  not  even  such  an 
arch-schemer  as  the  German  Chancellor  could  possibly 
succeed.  Mme.  Adam,  herself  an  irreconcilable  Revan- 
charde,  felt  confident  that  her  Latin  brethren  in  Italy  could 
never  so  far  forget  their  unredeemed  territory  as  to  ally 
themselves  with  the  Austrian  plunderer,  "  and  to  consent 
to  be  dragged  behind  the  chariot  of  Hapsburgs  and 
Hohenzollerns."  But  alas  !  that  swift  Gallic  intuition, 
which  had  often  led  her  to  see  into  the  future  of  European 
politics,  had  for  the  moment  forsaken  her.  Italy  was  not 
true  to  la  Revanche.  She  came  to  terms  with  the  con- 
queror. When  the  Triple  Alliance  was  formed  Mme.  Adam 
saw  one  of  her  brightest  dreams  vanish.  She  had  hoped 
to  substitute  for  Gambetta's  Triple  Entente  between 
France,  England  and  Russia  another  three-cornered  under- 
standing, one  between  France,  Italy  and  Russia. 

Now  that  Italy  had  joined  the  enemy  Mme.  Adam  turned 
with  more  enthusiasm  than  ever  to  Russia.  Writing  1  of 
her  articles  on  foreign  politics  in  La  Nouvelle  Revue,  she 
announces  that  she  will  give  Russia  a  prominent  part. 
"  Pour  mes  lettres  sur  la  'politique  exterieure,"  she  writes, 
"  mon  siege  est  fait,  la  lutte  a  plume  armee  contre  Bismarck 
et  pour  V alliance  russe."  2  Already  her  friendship  with 
Tourguenieff  had  taught  her  something  of  the  Russian 
soul.  She  studied  Russian  history,  especially  the  history  of 
the  revolutionary  movement.  She  was  in  constant  corre- 
spondence with  General  Chanzy,  the  French  Ambassador 
at  Petrograd.     Finally,  in  1882,  she  visited  Russia. 

She  stayed  at  the  Hotel  de  l'Europe.     There  she  was 
visited    by    numerous    persons    of    distinction.     No    one 
impressed  her  so  much  as  General  Skobeleff,  the  heroic 
1  Souvenirs,  VH.  373.  *  Ibid.,  380. 


VIEWS   ON   FOREIGN   POLITICS       229 

defender  of  Plevna.  They  were  well  matched,  these  two 
passionate  patriots — this  handsome  Western  woman,  la 
grande  Franqaise,  and  this  typical  Cossack,  this  fervent 
Slav.  He  was  called  "  the  white  General,"  because  it 
was  his  custom  to  wear,  in  battle,  a  white  coat,  which 
challenged  the  enemy's  bullets  to  defile  its  spotless  purity 
with  blood-stains.  Alike  for  the  Russian  Pan-Slavist 
and  the  French  Revancharde  there  was  but  one  device, 
"  the  German  is  the  enemy."  No  one  in  Russia  did  Mme. 
Adam  long  more  to  see  than  this  hero  of  the  Russo-Turkish 
War.  Their  meeting,  which  occurred  in  the  vast  yellow 
drawing-room  of  the  Hotel  de  l'Europe  in  January  1882, 
she  has  vividly  described  in  her  little  book  on  Skobeleff, 
first  published  in  1886,  and  reprinted  in  a  revised  edition 
in  1916. 

"  We  looked  at  one  another,"  she  writes,  "  not  wishing 
to  make  any  trivial  remarks.  ...  It  was  of  his  cause  I 
spoke  to  him  before  my  own.  And  this  is  what  he  said  to 
me  about  the  Balkan  peoples  :  '  I  assure  you  they  are 
tyrannised  over.  They  must  fill  you  with  pity.  For 
example,  in  Bosnia,  in  Herzegovina,  the  oppressor  forces 
the  children  to  serve  in  the  very  army  which  has  slain 
their  fathers  and  brothers.  Into  their  hands  is  put  a  gun 
all  dripping  with  the  blood  of  Slavs.  This  thought  dri\< a 
me  mad,  as  it  must  you  when  you  think  of  the  people 
of  Alsace-Lorraine  serving  in  the  Prussian  army.' 

"  '  Yes,  but  they  were  actually  our  brethren,  they  were 
so  near  to  us,  the  Slavs  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  are  not 
so  intimately  related  to  you.' 

"  '  Not  these  Slavs  !  WThy,  they  are  our  brethren,' 
he  said  in  a  tone  which  thrilled  me  through  and  through. 
'  Pray  do  not  let  us  argue  about  the  relative  acuteness  of 
our  suffering.  Russia  waged  war  in  order  to  deliver  the 
Slavs  beyond  the  Danube  from  the  Turkish  yoke.  .  .  . 
And  now  she  cannot  permit  Austria's  yoke  to  be  sub- 
stituted for  Turkey's.  The  former  is  also  more  oppressive, 
for  it  tyrannises  not  merely  over  the  individual's  person, 
but  over  his  conscience.  .  .  .' 

"  '  Austria,'  I  argued,  '  has  for  some  years  been  hardly 
responsible  for  her  action  in  the  East.  It  is  Germany  who 
is  urging  her  to  dominate  over  the  peoples  of  the  Balkan 
Peninsula,  and  to  conquer  them  both  by  force  of  arms  and 
by  diplomacy.' 


230  MADAME   ADAM 

"  '  Germany  !  '  he  repeated,  and  into  that  one  word  he 
breathed  all  the  fire  of  his  hatred. 

"  The  preachers  of  the  Crusades  must  have  looked  like 
that  apostle  of  the  Slavs. 

"  '  I  no  longer  love  war,'  said  Skobeleff.  '  No,  I  love  it 
no  longer;  I  have  waged  it  too  often,'  he  added,  as  if 
replying  to  his  own  inmost  thought.  '  No  victory  is  worth 
all  it  costs  of  energy,  of  strength,  of  public  money  and  of 
men.  Yet  there  is  a  war  for  which  I  should  ever  be  ready, 
and  which  I  should  never  deem  too  costly.  It  is  a  holy 
war.  Sooner  or  later  the  devourers  of  the  Slavs  must  be 
themselves  devoured.  On  that  day,  I  see  it,  I  will  it,  I 
predict  it,  Germany  will  be  devoured  by  the  Slavs,  the 
Latins,  the  Franks.' 

Mme.  Adam  and  her  new  friend  had  far  too  much  in 
common  for  their  friendship  to  cease  with  her  departure 
from  Petrograd.  He  followed  her  to  Paris.  There  he 
visited  her  salon.  They  agreed  to  work  together,  to 
unite  all  their  forces  in  order  to  oppose  what  Skobeleff 
described  as  le  systeme  a"  enveloppement  bismarckien. 
But  their  hopes  were  disappointed  by  Skobeleff' s  early 
death  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine.  Shortly  before  he  died 
he  said  to  one  of  his  compatriots  :  "  Carry  on  my  work, 
and  do  not  neglect  to  bring  into  all  your  plans  our  friend 
in  Paris."  Mme.  Adam  is  one  of  those  who  lay  at  Bis- 
marck's door  the  sudden  passing  of  this  brilliant  soldier 
and  irreconcilable  Germanophobe.  But  the  Chancellor 
has  enough  crimes  accredited  to  him  without  this.  A 
distinguished  French  journalist,  who  knew  Skobeleff,  and  in 
many  ways  greatly  admired  him,  wrote  to  me  recently  :  "  I 
do  not  believe  he  was  assassinated  by  orders  from  Bismarck. 
I  know  too  much  of  his  death  to  believe  that.  Mais  les 
defends  de  ses  propres  qualites  Vont  conduit  a  une  mort  rapide." 

The  effect  of  Skobeleff  s  influence  on  Mme.  Adam  was 
to  render  truer  than  ever  the  words  of  her  friend,  Mme. 
Novikoff  :  elle  a  la  Russie  au  cceur.r  Now  with  all  her 
heart  and  soul  she  began  to  work  for  a  Franco-Russian 
Alliance.  It  was  precisely  this  alliance  that  Bismarck 
feared.  Mme.  Adam's  persistent  advocacy  of  it  in  the 
columns  of  ha  Nouvelle  Revue,  and  the  numerous  charges 
on  which  she  never  ceased  to  indict  the  Chancellor,  pro- 
voked him  on  one  occasion  to  cry  out  :  "Is  there  no  one 
1  Souvenirs,  VII.  421. 


VIEWS   ON   FOREIGN   POLITICS       231 

who  can  silence  cette  diablesse  de  fantnef  "  The  German 
Ambassador  at  Paris  is  said  to  have  repeated  this  question 
to  M.  Jules  Ferry,  then  Prime  Minister.  "Only  "ii.- 
person,"  he  replied,  iw  ami  lie  unhappily  is  dead  :  hex 
husband,  Edmond  Adam."  Ferry,  however,  .Mine.  Adam 
has  told  me,  desiring  to  obtain  German  support  <>r  ac- 
quiescence in  his  policy  of  colonial  expansion,  and  wish- 
ful, therefore,  to  please  the  German  Government,  did  ask 
her  to  discontinue  her  (iermanophobc  articles.  "Only 
if  you  imprison  me,"  she  replied.  "  And  what  an  honour  ! 
To  be  imprisoned  for  attacking  Bismarck." 

Keeping  closely  in  touch  with  her  Russian  friends  Mine. 
Adam  was  overjoyed  as  the  years  went  on  to  find  sympathy 
with  France  growing  in  Russia.  At  first  it  had  existed 
only  among  Russian  Revolutionaries.  But  it  began  to 
spread  to  the  conservatives,  and  finally  to  the  Czar, 
Alexander  III,  himself.  Then  came  the  glorious  days  of 
Cronstadt  and  Toulon.  When  the  French  squadron,  under 
Admiral  Gervais,  entered  Cronstadt  harbour,  on  the 
25th  of  July,  1891,  Mme.  Adam  was  in  an  ecstasy  to 
hear  with  what  immense  enthusiasm  it  had  been  received. 
When,  in  the  following  August,  the  Treaty  of  Alliance 
between  France  and  Russia  was  signed,  Count  Ignatieff, 
the  ex-Minister  of  Interior,  sent  her  a  telegram  beginning  : 
"  To  you  is  due  the  honour  of  having  predicted  the  senti- 
ments which  unite  French  and  Russian  hearts,"  and 
ending  writh  the  wish  that  "  the  bond  which  unites  our 
two  countries  may  endure  for  ever."  * 

In  October  1893  a  detachment  of  the  Russian  fleet 
entered  Toulon  harbour  on  a  return  visit.  Mme.  Adam, 
we  may  be  sure,  took  care  to  be  in  the  South  of  France 
during  that  visit.  In  the  festivities  with  which  the  Hussion 
soldiers  were  entertained  at  Toulon,  and  later  in  Paris, 
she  played  a  prominent  part.  On  behalf  of  the  women  of 
France  she  presented  the  Russian  sailors  with  numerous 
gifts,  and  each  married  officer  received  from  her  hand  a 
gold  bracelet  for  his  wife.  On  another  occasion,  a  dis- 
tinguished Russian,  visiting  Paris,  was  proud  to  find  that 
Mme.  Adam  had  been  deputed  to  bestow  upon  him  his 
brevet  de  commandeur  de  la  legion  d'honneur.* 

1  See  article,  The  Birth  of  an  Alliance,  contributed  by  Mme.  Adam  to 
The  Daily  Chronicle,  18  May,  1916. 

2  De  Goncourt,  Journal,  VI.  200. 


232  MADAME   ADAM 

Mme.  Adam's  sympathies  as  an  ardent  Slavophile  were 
by  no  means  confined  to  Russia.  No  Slavonic  people  is 
without  a  place  in  her  heart.  Their  struggles  against 
Teutonism  have  always  appealed  to  her.  With  Gambetta 
she  believed  that  one  of  the  surest  ways  of  pulling  down 
the  Germanic  Tower  of  Babel  is  to  hold  out  a  helping  hand 
to  the  Slavs  of  the  Lower  Danube.1  She  has  ever  been  the 
friend  of  Roumania.  In  La  Nouvelle  Revue  she  wrote 
on  the  1st  of  September,  1881  :  "  Roumania' s  attitude 
will  never  be  aggressive."  Again,  in  the  same  publication, 
on  the  15th  of  the  month,  she  continued  to  preach  con- 
fidence in  Roumania  :  "I  believe,"  she  wrote,  "  that 
Roumania,  by  reason  of  her  smallness,  constitutes  the  best 
safeguard  of  international  interests  and  the  surest  guarantee 
of  the  liberty  of  a  river  (the  Danube)  which  she  has  no 
intention  of  exploiting  for  her  own  personal  ends." 

Throughout  the  eighties  and  nineties,  whenever  she  could 
escape  from  her  editorial  duties  in  Paris,  Mme.  Adam  would 
start  off  on  some  journey  to  Central  Europe — to  Vienna, 
Hungary,  North  Italy  or  Montenegro.2  Thus  she  has  been 
able  to  study  on  the  spot  the  Near  Eastern  question.  And 
for  twenty  years  she  conducted  in  Austria  and  the  Balkans 
a  veritable  crusade  on  behalf  of  nationalism,  anti-Teutonism 
and  Slavism.  Everywhere  her  charm  of  manner  and  her 
acquaintance  with  Ambassadors  in  Paris  obtained  for  her 
an  entry  into  diplomatic  circles;  and  it  may  well  be 
imagined  that  the  insight  she  thus  gained  into  the  most 
complex  of  European  problems  was  invaluable  to  her  in 
writing  her  articles  on  foreign  politics  for  La  Nouvelle 
Revue. 

In  1884,  during  her  visit  to  Hungary,  which  she  has 
described  in  her  book,  La  Patrie  Hongroise,  she  found  her- 
self up  against  a  difficulty,  the  stubbornness  of  which  she 
had  not  suspected.  She  was  dismayed  by  the  Magyar 
indignation  at  her  Slavist  propaganda.  For  the  Magyars 
Russia  was  as  much  "  the  enemy  "  as  was  Germany  for 
French  Revanchards.  Socially,  the  Nationalist  party  was 
charmed  to  receive  her ;  on  that  field,  as  always,  she  proved 
irresistible;  but  her  Slavist  gospel  they  rejected  with 
scorn.      After  her  return  to  Paris  the  leader  of  the  Hun- 

1  Souvenirs,  VII.  165. 

*  See  her  picturesque  article  on  "  Montenegro  "  in  La  Nouvelle  Revue, 
1898. 


VIEWS  ON  FOREIGN   POLITICS       233 

garian  nationalists,  Count  Apponyi,  wrote  her  a  letter 
expressing  irreconcilable  antagonism  to  Russia.  He 
declared  that  in  case  of  a  conflict  between  Russia  and 
Germany,  Hungary's  instinct  of  self-preservation  would 
lead  her  to  place  her  army  of  600,000  men  1  at  Germany's 
disposal.  Again,  in  June  1888,  Count  Apponyi  wrote  : 
"  Even  under  the  charm  of  your  pen,  madame,  the  most 
ingenuous  of  readers  cannot  help  smiling  to  see  the  name 
of  Russia  coupled  with  any  ideal  whatsoever.  .  .  .  We 
for  centuries  have  been  the  safeguard  of  civilisation. 
We  arrested  that  wave  of  barbarism,  the  inflow  of  the 
Turks,  which  broke  against  our  frontier.  The  same  fate 
will  attend  the  Russian  wave." 

In  no  country  did  Mine.  Adam  more  passionately  espouse 
the  national  cause  than  in  Egypt.  Here  her  motto  was, 
"  Egypt  for  the  Egyptians."  She  had  great  faith  in  the 
Egyptian  people,  and  she  strongly  approved  of  the  French 
refusal  to  join  the  British  in  their  bombardment  of 
Alexandria. 

Mr.  Gladstone's  action  in  this  matter  was  a  sad  blow 
to  her  admiration  of  this  illustrious  statesman.  She  had 
regarded  him  as  the  apostle  of  the  oppressed,  as  "  the 
initiator  of  democracy."  She  had  admired  his  champion- 
ship of  Armenia  and  Bulgaria  and  of  Home  Rule  in  Ireland. 
Of  the  Irish  problem,  she  had  written  :  "  Mr.  Gladstone 
is  the  only  man,  not  in  Great  Britain  alone,  but  in  Europe, 
capable  of  dealing  with  such  a  desperate  situation."  2 
Contrasting  the  British  Prime  Minister  with  the  German 
Chancellor,  she  writes  :  3  "  While  Europeans  are  accus- 
tomed to  await  in  agonising  suspense  the  acts  and  speeches 
of  M.  de  Bismarck,  they  await  in  hope  and  in  confidence 
the  utterances  of  Mr.  Gladstone." 

When  she  saw  Mr.  Gladstone  taking  what  seemed  to  her 
the  anti-nationalist  side  in  Egypt,  she  could  only  believe 
that  he  had  been  forced  into  this  concession  fat  ale  by 
"  British  mercantile  Chauvinists "  and  Palmerstonians.4 
Mr.  Gladstone's  goodwill  towards  France  she  never  doubted ; 
but  she  deplored  that  it  had  been  unable  to  permeate  the 
British  Foreign  Office.5 

1  See  The  Daily  Chronicle,  23  September,  1916,  Mme.  Adam's  article 
"  Teuton  and  Slav,"  where  she  quotes  these  remarkable  letters  in  full. 
a  La  Nouvelle  Revue,  XVI.  459.  »  Ibid.,  XII.  897. 

*  Ibid.,  XVII.  496,  736,  739.  6  Ibid.,  XVI.  978. 


234  MADAME   ADAM 

The  influence  of  mercantile  Chauvinism  Mme.  Adam 
discerned  in  the  Fashoda  Affair.  It  was  then  giving  birth 
to  that  British  Imperialism,  which  whether  advocated  by 
Mr.  Chamberlain  or  Lord  Rosebery *  seemed  to  her  equally 
dangerous.  In  the  South  African  War  she  saw  what  she 
had  described  as  V insatiable  ambition  des  agents  britanniques 
in  Egypt,  developing  into  la  voracite  scandaleuse  de  VAngle- 
terre  en  Transvaal.2 

It  was  with  some  dismay,  however,  that  on  this  question 
of  the  Boer  Republic's  Independence  Mme.  Adam  found 
herself  in  line  with  her  arch-enemy,  the  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many. And  one  can  hardly  congratulate  her  on  the 
fiction  with  which  she  tried  to  extricate  herself  from  such 
a  lamentable  position;  for  she  genuinely  persuaded  her- 
self that  William  II  was  only  supporting  Kruger  in  order  to 
please  his  subjects,  and  that  in  reality  Queen  Victoria's 
grandson  could  not  fail  to  side  with  his  grandmother. 

Mme.  Adam's  hereditary  suspicion  of  la  per  fide  Albion 
was,  as  she  herself  confessed  to  me,  by  no  means  allayed 
by  the  Entente  Cordiale.  It  was  not  until  Great  Britain 
retrieved  the  error  of  1870,  and  definitely  entered  the 
Great  War  as  the  Ally  of  France,  that  this  grande  Fran- 
caise  began  to  trust  us. 

That  she  has  completely  changed  her  opinion  of  us,  and 
that  she  is  not  ashamed  to  own  it,  is  proved  by  this  extract 
from  one  of  her  letters  written  to  me  in  1916.  She  is 
referring  to  an  Englishman  who  had  recently  visited  her 
at  Gif.  .  .  . 

"  Abbaye  de  Gif, 
"  S.  et  Oise, 

"  Le  8  octobre,  1916. 

"...  Comme  le  grand  depute  capitaine  respire  la 
volonte,  la  conviction,  le  patriotisme  !  Quelle  joie  d '  apprendre 
nos  allUs  si  autrement  que  je  croyais  les  connaitre." 

One  of  her  British  confreres,  she  describes  as  le  plus  par- 
fait  gentilhomme  du  monde.      Now   in   1917   she   writes  : 

1  La  Nouvelle  Revue,  Vol.  I.  Series  2,  December  9, 1899.  "  Uimperialisme 
de  Lord  Rosebery  est  le  meme  que  celui  de  M.  Chamberlain  d'une  nuance  de  pres. 
Vun  veut  aggrandir  a  tout  prix  V Angleterre,  accaparer  tout  ce  qui  peut  etre 
accapare,  et  cela  par  tous  les  moyens  :  Lord  Rosebery  veut  conserver  tout  ce 
qui  aura  ete  accapare  par  M.  Chamberlain.'11 

2  Ibid.,  Vol.  I.  Series  2,  254. 


VIEWS   ON  FOREIGN   POLITICS       235 

"  V Angleterre  est  admirable.  Vive  V  Angleterre.  Her  im- 
provised army  is  worth  the  most  ancient  of  armies.  Be 
proud  of  it.  Such  words  on  my  lips  are  not  without  their 
value.  For  I  was  once  your  enemy.  I  blamed  your 
policy  at  the  Berlin  Congress  and  in  Heligoland."  "  Now, 
side  by  side,  fer  a  fer,  France  and  the  United  Kingdom 
will  drive  out  of  France,  out  of  Lorraine,  out  of  Belgium,  the 
German,  who  is  the  enemy  of  us  all."  ] 

In  conclusion,  we  must  not  omit  to  note  that  Mme. 
Adam's  classical  interests  could  not  fail  to  lead  her  to 
sympathise  with  the  national  movement  in  Greece  and  with 
the  ideals  of  her  friend,  Venizelos,  with  whom  she  has 
corresponded  during  the  present  war.  We  are  not  sur- 
prised to  learn  that  the  leader  of  Greek  Nationalists 
welcomed  with  enthusiasm  the  publication  of  Mme.  Adam's 
book,  VHeure  V  engeresse  des  Crimes  Bismarckiens.  For 
his  poor  distracted  land  has  indeed  been  one  of  the  worst 
sufferers  from  Bismarck's  crimes,  and  from  the  decisions 
taken  by  that  bete  noir  of  Mme.  Adam,  the  Berlin  Congress. 

1  While  the  first  quotations  in  this  paragraph  occur  in  Mme.  Adam's 
letters  to  me,  the  last  sentence  is  taken  from  her  Preface  to  Ulleure 
Vengeresse  des  Crimes  Bisrnarckiens. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


THE    ABBESS    OF    GIF 


" a  Soul  whose  master-bias  leans 

To  homefelt  pleasures  and  to  gentle  scenes." — Wordsworth. 

"  La  vieillesse  .  .  .  cet  Age  heureux  on  Von  n'est  plus  qiCamie,  mere  et 
grand1  mere." — Juliette  Adam,  Souvenirs,  III.  211. 

The  editing  of  La  Nouvelle  Revue  had,  as  we  have  seen, 
revolutionised  Mme.  Adam's  life.  It  had  put  an  end  to 
her  salon  and  to  her  Memoirs.  It  had  also  prevented  her 
from  wintering  in  the  South  of  France.  Only  at  rare 
intervals  could  she  find  time  to  spend  a  few  weeks  at  her 
beloved  Bruyeres.  As  time  went  on  and  as  family,  as 
well  as  business,  ties  multiplied  in  the  north,  Bruyeres 
was  more  and  more  neglected,  then  entirely  forsaken,  and 
finally  sold. 

Now,  in  order  to  be  near  her  work,  and  also  to  be 
near  her  daughter  and  her  daughter's  children,  she  ex- 
changed her  villa  on  Le  Golfe  Juan  for  a  picturesque  country 
house,  L'Abbaye  de  Gif,  in  Seine  et  Oise.  This  new  abode 
is  but  an  hour's  train  journey  from  Paris.  It  also  borders 
on  the  lands  of  that  famous  convent,  Port  Royal  des 
Champs.  With  the  spirit  of  the  great  Port  Royalists,  of 
Pascal  and  of  Racine,  Mme.  Adam  communes  as  she  writes. 
It  was  in  the  Abbey  of  Gif  that  some  of  the  nuns  from 
Port  Royal  took  refuge  when  their  settlement  was  broken 
up  and  their  lands  confiscated  by  Louis-Quatorze.  Now 
the  present  Abbess  of  Gif,  as  her  friends  like  to  call  Mme. 
Adam,  sitting  up  in  her  Abbey  tower  far  on  into  the 
night,  watching  the  white  mist  rising  from  the  valley, 
beholds  in  it  forms  which  seem  to  her  the  sisters  of  Old 
France  beckoning  la  grande  Francaise  away  from  her  early 
paganism. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  surroundings  more 
essentially  French  than  those  amidst  which  Juliette  Adam 
spends  the  evening  of  her  days.     High  above  the  large 

236 


ruins  of  the  abbey  of  gif  in  the  park  of 
madame  adam's  present  home 


THE   ABBESS   OF   GIF  237 

and  commodious  house,  with  its  spacious  salon,  filled 
with  memorials  of  its  mistress's  travels,  rise  in  the  park 
the  ruins  of  the  Abbey  refectory  and  chapel.  The  ivy 
which  covers  them  our  Abbess,  who  has  ever  been  an 
enthusiastic  gardener,  tenderly  trims  with  her  own  hand, 
despite  her  fourscore  years.  Gradually,  under  her  direc- 
tion, new  portions  of  the  ruins  are  being  excavated. 
Every  time  one  visits  Gif  one  finds  some  fresh  part  of  t he- 
Abbey  has  been  unearthed.  Each  stone  as  it  is  dug  up 
Mme.  Adam  reveres  as  a  relic  of  le  Grand  Steele.  There 
is  not  one  of  those  mute  memorials  of  past  glory  which 
Mme.  Adam's  vivid  Gallic  imagination  does  not  invest 
with  some  special  physiognomy;  this  is  like  Juno's  sacred 
owl,  that  bears  the  semblance  of  a  Gorgon.  "  And  is  not 
this  the  image  of  le  Pere  Eternel  ?  "  she  said  to  me,  point- 
ing to  a  rocky  fragment  in  the  centre  of  her  bois  sacre. 
I,  alas  !  was  afflicted  with  blindness.  I  was  as  dull  of 
comprehension  as  the  mother  of  the  little  boy  who,  asking 
her  son  what  he  was  drawing  and  being  told  it  was  God, 
answered,  "  But  no  one  knows  what  He  is  like,"  and  was 
promptly  crushed  by  the  answer,  "  When  I  have  finished 
they  will  know." 

In  this  beautiful  country  home  Mme.  Adam  practises 
with  a  success  no  less  signal  than  that  of  her  old  friend, 
Victor  Hugo,  the  art  of  being  a  grandparent. 

Her  daughter  Alice  had  married  in  February  1873  a 
brilliant  young  medical  student,  Paul  Segond,  who  became 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  medical  profession  in  France.1 
"  Do  not  marry  your  daughter  into  a  circle  too  political," 
had  been  George  Sand's  advice.  But  George  Sand's 
young  friend  "Topaz"  had  married  herself;  for  her 
mother  had  suffered  too  much  from  a  mariage  de  con- 
venance  to  wish  to  impose  one  on  her  daughter.  Though 
the  bridegroom  was  no  politician,  his  mother-in-law's 
political  fervour  couk1  not  refrain  from  introducing  into 
the  wedding  ceremony  a  political  significance.  The  chief 
witnesses  who  signed  the  marriage  register  were  Louis 
Blanc,  the  leader  of  the  old  Republicans,  and  Gambetta, 
the  leader  of  the  new.  At  the  ball  in  the  evening  the 
appearance  of  the  ex-Mayoress  of  the  conquered  town  of 
Mulhouse,  Mme.  Koechlin-Schwartz,  wearing  in  her  white 
hair  a  tricolour  cockade,  reminded  the  guests  of  the 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  159. 


238  MADAME   ADAM 

national  defeat  and  of  la  Revanche.  The  ex-Mayoress  was 
escorted  by  her  husband  the  Mayor,  whom  the  Prussians 
had  two  years  before  held  as  a  hostage. 

A  few  weeks  before  the  wedding  George  Sand,  in  her 
New  Year's  letter  to  Juliette  Adam,  had  written  :  "  Who 
knows  whether  the  year  which  opens  to-morrow  may  not 
make  you  a  grandmother?  "  x 

"  Cest  alter  vite,"  exclaimed  her  friend.  "  My  daughter 
will  be  married  in  February.  But  if  the  year  does  not 
bring  me  the  joy  of  being  a  grandmother,  it  may  give  me 
the  hope  of  being  one.  In  any  case,  it  will  make  me  the 
mother  of  a  big  son,  my  daughter's  husband.  To  have 
children  by  my  two  children  !  Ah  !  I  should  go  mad 
with  joy.  No  persons  in  the  world  have  I  envied  so 
much  as  Mme.  Sand  and  Mme.  Dorian,  who  are  grand- 
mothers. And  I,  who  am  much  younger  than  they,  I 
shall  see  my  granddaughters  marry  and  I  shall  become  a 
great-grandmother.  Ah  !  les  superbes  chaines  enchainantes 
que  celles  de  la  famille !  And  to  think  that  there  are 
those  who  would  break  them  !  Les  malheureux  et  les 
miserables  !  " 

Things  did  not  move  quite  so  quickly  as  George  Sand 
had  anticipated.  Three  years  elapsed  before  Juliette 
Adam,  at  the  age  of  forty,  could  revel  in  the  raptures  of 
grandmotherhood,  before  she  could  place  in  the  adorable 
Moise,  the  gift  of  George  Sand,  Alice's  wee  daughter, 
Pauline.  Mme.  Sand  sent  with  the  cradle  a  long  letter 
of  advice  as  to  the  conduct  of  a  grandmother.  Juliette 
had  her  own  views  on  that  subject  :  on  the  day  of  Pauline's 
birth  she  began  to  powder  her  hair  and  to  wish  hence- 
forth to  be  taken  not  so  much  for  a  woman  of  charm  as 
for  une  femme  de  valeur. 

"  At  what  age  did  you  first  begin  to  love  your  grand- 
children? "  asked  Victor  Hugo,  during  one  of  their  long 
talks  on  the  mysteries  of  grandparentage. 

"  I  loved  my  first  little  granddaughter  passionately  from 
the  very  first,"  Mme.  Adam  replied;  "as  soon  as  I 
received  her  in  my  apron." 

"  Ah  !  What  blessed  privileges  you  grandmothers 
enjoy  !  "  sighed  the  mere  grandfather.  "  You  who  can 
receive  new-born  infants  in  your  apron  !  "  2 

Mme.  Adam's  one  regret  as  a  grandmother  is  that  her 
1  Souvenirs,  V.  365.  2  Ibid.,  VII.  79. 


THE   ABBESS   OF   GIF  239 

three  granddaughters  did  not  marry  earlier.  Had  they 
only  taken  to  themselves  husbands  at  her  own  early  age, 
she  would  by  now  have  been  a  great-great  as  well  as  u 
great-grandmother. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  a  numerous  petit  monde  which  flocks 
out  to  Gif  in  the  Easter  and  summer  holidays  to  play 
round  the  palm-tree  from  Pierre  Loti's  garden  in  the  south, 
to  act  charades  in  the  rustic  theatre,  to  partake  of  goutU 
in  the  cabaret  with  its  quaintly  frescoed  walls,  and  to 
awake  with  their  merry  laughter  the  shades  of  those  gas- 
damsels  of  la  Vieille  France,  Mile,  de  Sevigne  and  Mile. 
Marie  Racine,  who  in  the  days  of  le  Grand  Monarque  were 
educated  within  the  Abbey  walls. 

"  Ah  !  que  cest  beau,  que  cest  Francais,"  we  exclaim 
with  an  eminent  French  artist,  as  we  gaze  down  from  the 
terrace  of  Gif  over  the  broad,  fertile  valley,  with  its  white 
ribbon  of  a  road  winding  up  from  the  little  railway  station, 
to  the  low  distant  hills  fringed  with  those  graceful,  feathery 
trees  which  Corot  loved  to  paint.  Here,  at  the  arched 
Abbey  gate,  stands  the  Abbess  herself,  receiving  lier 
guests  with  the  stateliness  of  une  grande  dame,  a  winning 
smile  lighting  up  her  grey  eyes  and  illuminating  her 
clear-cut  features. 

Mme.  Adam  has  never  been  one  who  could  completely 
cut  herself  off  from  Paris.  Though  she  seldom  goes  to 
Paris  now,  Paris  comes  to  her.  And  in  her  salon  at  Gif 
she  keeps  alive  cette  causeriefrangai.se,  which,  alas  !  tends 
to  disappear  from  the  salons  of  the  metropolis.  In  the 
hurly-burly  of  modern  life  that  leisurely  talk  which  alone, 
writes  Mme.  Adam,  entretient  les  vitalites  de  notre  esprit 
grows  more  and  more  impossible.  Before  the  war  con- 
versation was  already  a  lost  art.  "  When  I  begin  to  talk 
in  a  modern  drawing-room,"  says  Mme.  Adam,  "  I  am 
told  to  be  silent  because  I  am  interrupting  a  game  of 
bridge,  or  because  some  one  is  going  to  dance  the  tango." 
And  even  on  those  rare  occasions  when  conversation  was 
permitted,  it  was  found  that  the  dull  weight  of  the 
Germanic  spirit,  then  permeating  French  intellectual 
society,  had  extinguished  the  sparkle  of  French  talk,  had 
blunted  the  rapier  of  French  irony.  The  professor  with 
his  monologue  had  insinuated  himself  into  French  drawing- 
rooms,  silencing  those  scintillating  interruptions,  forbidding 
the  smart  give-and-take  of  brilliant  repartee.     "  We  are 


240  MADAME   ADAM 

told,"  protests  Mme.  Adam,  "  that  our  conversation  is  not 
documents." 

La  causerie  frangaise,  banished  from  the  salon,  was 
taking  refuge  in  the  club  and  the  cafe.  Has  not  Mme. 
Adam's  own  fils  adoptif,  Leon  Daudet,  lately  written  :  x 
"  he  cafe  est  Vecole  de  la  franchise  et  de  la  drolerie  spontanie, 
tandis  que  le  salon  est  en  general  Vecole  du  poncif  et  de  la 
mode  imbScile  "  ? 

But  of  Mme.  Adam's  salon  Daudet  makes  a  notable 
exception.  Of  the  Sunday  and  Tuesday  afternoons  at 
Gif  he  has  painted  a  vivid  picture,2  to  which  may  be 
added  not  a  few  interesting  features.  While  of  yore  to 
the  Sundays  and  Tuesdays  of  Gif  Paris  came  by  carriage 
or  train,  to-day  it  comes  by  automobile.  Motorists  have 
everything  made  easy  for  them  :  they  are  provided  with 
a  clear  road-plan  printed  on  a  neat  little  card  indicating 
the  route  from  the  Suresne  Gate  of  the  Bois  de  Boulogne 
as  far  as  the  spot  where,  but  a  few  miles  from  their  destina- 
tion, friendly  sign-posts  begin  to  point  a  VAbbaye  de  Gif. 
Before  the  war,  on  fine  Sunday  afternoons,  on  the  terrace 
of  Gif,  might  be  found  assembled  sometimes  as  many  as 
fifty  persons,  Royalists  and  Republicans,  generals  and 
admirals,  bishops  and  deputies,  academicians  and  journal- 
ists, among  whose  conflicting  opinions  their  hostess's  tact 
and  cordiality  contrived  to  keep  the  peace  in  a  marvellous 
manner. 

With  a  merry  laugh  as  gay  as  the  blue  sky  of  France, 
she  would  set  to  play  together  or  to  act  in  a  charade 
journalists  and  authors  who  but  a  few  days  before  had 
been  at  loggerheads.  To  Judet  of  V Eclair  she  would  give 
the  opportunity  of  being  revenged  at  skittles  on  his 
antagonist,  that  abusive  Leon  Daudet  who  in  L' Action 
Frangaise  was  given  to  denouncing  him  as  ce  vain  colosse, 
"  outvying  in  foppishness  the  goose  and  the  peacock." 
She  would  compel  Maurice  Barres  to  disguise  his  boredom 
as  he  listened  to  the  latest  lucubration  of  his  aged  fellow- 
academician,  Jean  Ricard.  She  would  severely  lecture 
Paul  Bourget  on  the  looseness  of  that  unacademical 
expression  cependant  que.  She  would  dispel  the  melan- 
choly of  the  author  of  Fantome  d' Orient  and  Fleurs  a" Ennui 
until,  like  the  gayest  of  butterflies,  he  disported  himself 
in  the  sunshine  of  her  presence.     And  then,  with  a  wave 

1  Salons  et  Journaux  (1917).  a  LlEntre-deuz-Ouerrea  (1915), 


THE   ABBESS   OF   GIF  241 

of  her  wand,  she  would  summon  the  whole  company  to  hci 
theatre  to  help  in  devising  a  charade  which  should  render 
that  impossible  word  autobus  set  by  la  Duehesse  d'Uzes. 

In  the  quietude  of  week-days  at  Gil',  and  after  she  had 
retired  from  La  Nouvelle  Revue  in  1899,  Mine.  Adam  found 
time  to  review  the  varied  episodes  of  her  romantic  life, 
to  sort  her  old  papers,  to  fix  her  recollections  of  persons, 
things  and  movements,  and  to  arrange  and  publish  them 
in  seven  volumes  of  Souvenirs,  which  appeared  at  intervals 
between  1902  and  1910. x 

"  It  may  be  well,"  she  writes  in  her  Preface  to  the  first 
volume,  "  to  fix  a  departing  age  before  the  eyes  of  those 
who  are  hurrying  towards  an  age  which  is  dawning.  It 
is  the  pleasure  and  the  privilege  of  old  people  to  tell  of 
yesterday's  happenings,  especially  if  they  do  not  insist 
upon  the  superiority  of  and  perpetually  draw  a  moral 
from  that  which  has  disappeared." 

Juliette  Adam  had  from  an  early  age  cultivated  the 
excellent  habit  of  keeping  a  diary,  and  making  notes  of 
the  interesting  conversations  she  heard  while  they  were 
fresh  in  her  memory.2  Sometimes,  in  order  to  make  sure 
of  their  accuracy,  she  would  revise  these  notes  with  friends 
present  on  the  same  occasions.  One  of  her  volumes  of 
Souvenirs,  Mes  Illusions  et  nos  Souffrances  pendant  le  siege 
de  Paris,  had  appeared  earlier,  in  1871,  first  as  a  serial  in 
the  newspaper  Le  Rappel,  and  later  in  volume,  with  the 
title  Journal  du  Siege.  This  part  of  her  diary,  originally 
intended  for  her  daughter,  had  a  great  success.  When 
it  was  appearing  in  Le  Rappel,  Mine.  Adam's  lifelong 
friend,  Henri  de  Rochefort,  was  undergoing  imprisonment 
for  the  part  he  had  played  in  the  Commune.  He  wrote 
to  her  from  his  prison  :  3  "  The  success  of  your  Siege  de 
Paris  here  is  insupportable.  Every  one  tries  to  steal  my 
newspaper,  and  I  do  nothing  but  endeavour  to  recover  it. 
Some  of  our  convicts  are  actually  copying  the  serial. 
After  the  next  amnesty  you  will  have  the  greatest  difficult  y 

1  Vol.     I.  Le  Roman  de  mon  Enfance  et  de  ma  Jeunesse. 
II.  Mes  Premieres  Armes  Litteraires  et  Politiques. 

III.  Mes  Sentiments  et  nos  Idees  avant  1870. 

IV.  Mes  Illusions  el  nos  Souffrances  pendant  le  siege  de  Paris. 
V.  Mes  Angoisses  et  nos  Luttes,  1871—3. 

VI.  Nos  Amitiees  Politiques  avant  I' Abandon  de  la  Revanche. 
VII.  Apres  V Abandon  de  la  Revanche. 

2  Souvenirs,  I.  150;   II.  264.  3  Ibid.,  V.  334. 

R 


242  MADAME   ADAM 

in  the  world  in  escaping  nomination  as  candidate  for  the 
chamber  of  deputies.  So  exactly  have  you  photographed 
the  physiognomy  of  Paris  that  every  day,  as  I  read  you,  I 
discover  things  which  I  had  entirely  forgotten,  and  which 
I  see  again  as  I  did  when  they  were  happening." 

Mme.  Adam  had  distinguished  herself  among  her  fellow- 
countrywomen  by  the  foundation  and  brilliant  editing  of 
La  Nouvelle  Revue.  Now  in  these  seven  volumes  of  recol- 
lections, written  in  a  forcible  and  dramatic  style,  stamped 
each  one  with  the  hall-mark  of  sincerity,  virility  and 
passionate  patriotism,  she  stood  out  above  all  other 
Frenchwomen.  That  such  striking  volumes  should  create 
a  sensation,  that  they  should  cause  antagonism  as  well  as 
admiration,  was  inevitable. 

Ardent  republicans  of  the  Gambettist  school  accused 
Mme.  Adam  of  injustice  towards  one  who  had  once  been 
her  idol  and  her  friend.  A  fellow-nationalist,  M.  Henri 
Galli,  wrote  a  book,  Gambetta  et  Alsace  Lorraine,  with  the 
set  purpose  of  proving  that  Gambetta  had  not,  as  Mme. 
Adam  declared,  abandoned  the  policy  of  la  Revanche. 
The  only  answer  to  such  a  contention  is  that  Gambetta 
was  an  opportunist,  and  that  passages  from  his  speeches 
may  be  quoted  to  prove  the  correctness  of  both  Mme. 
Adam's  and  M.  Galli' s  points  of  view.  To  those  who 
accuse  Mme.  Adam  of  having  vilified  and  belittled  the 
Great  Tribune,  we  may  reply  that  she  passed  over  many 
things,  revealing  only  those  matters  of  his  private  life 
which  were  intimately  connected  with  his  public  career. 
Against  the  attacks  made  upon  her,  the  author  of  Mes 
Souvenirs  defended  herself  ably  in  the  columns  of  the 
Figaro  and  the  Gaulois. 

The  most  serious  of  the  charges  brought  against  Mme. 
Adam  is  that  of  being  un  genie  demolisseur.  To  those  who 
make  this  accusation  we  would  reply  that  it  reveals  a 
complete  misunderstanding  of  Mme.  Adam's  mind  and 
temperament.  It  is  true  that  her  recollections  show 
la  grande  Francaise  to  be  also  la  grande  Desabusee,  dis- 
appointed with  the  imperfect  realisation  of  those  high 
republican  ideals  held  up  before  her  youthful  mind  by 
her  revolutionary  father  and  his  comrades  of  1848.  But 
that  one  in  whom  hopefulness  and  optimism  had  ever 
predominated  should  now  give  way  to  despair,  that  one 
so  passionately  patriotic  should  ever  completely  lose  faith 
in  la  patrie,  is  impossible. 


THE   ABBESS   OF   GIF  *4fl 

Even  in  the  days  when  she  saw.  to  her  sorrow,  la  patrie 
forgetting  la  Revanche  and  pursuing  what  seemed  to  her 
the  disastrous  dream  of  colonial  dominion,  she  could  still 
write  :  "  Vesprit  aile  de  Vavenir  8' est  posi  aua  confins  de 
noire  horizon  ;  il  nous  apparaii  la-buy.  Id  has,  maU  clain  - 
ment"  x  M.  Leon  Daudet  believes  that  her  great  strength, 
sa  principale  force,  resides  in  the  fact  that  she  has  never 
despaired.2 

In  the  most  desperate  of  situations  she  is  always  con- 
vinced that  il  y  a  ton  jours  dans  un  coin  une  petite  chance 
que  Von  na  pas  entrevue.  And  what  is  this  petite  chance 
dans  un  coin  which,  when  the  war  is  over  and  Frenchmen 
have  time  to  think  about  domestic  polities.  Mine.  Adam 
believes  may  deliver  la  patrie  from  the  evils  of  political 
corruption  and  maladministration,  the  existence  of  which 
cannot  be  denied  by  the  most  fervent  admirers  of  France  ? 
Mme.  Adam's  opinion  is  that  these  serious  Haws  in  the 
body  politic  proceed  largely  from  over-centralisation. 

With  her  fellow-nationalist,  Charles  Maurras,3  Mme. 
Adam  advocates  decentralisation.  She  would  like  to  see 
the  revival  of  the  old  provincial  assemblies.  When,  in 
Alsace,  France  comes  into  her  own  again,  might  not  that 
ancient  institution,  the  Alsatian  Landschutz,  respected  by 
the  autocratic  Louis  XIV  and  even  to  a  certain  extent 
by  the  despotic  German,  serve  as  a  model  for  similar 
assemblies  throughout  the  French  provinces  ?  Thus  might 
provincial  France  be  delivered  from  the  octopus  of  Paris. 

Enthusiastic  for  "her  Paris"  as  Mme.  Adam  has  ever 
been,  she  nevertheless  realises  that  the  hereditary  virtues 
of  France  are  best  exemplified  in  the  provinces.  With 
the  literary  movement  of  "  regionalism  "  initiated  by 
Taine,  continued  by  Mistral  and  Maurice  Bancs,  she  has 
ever  sympathised.  Her  own  early  novels  are  redolent  with 
the  breath  of  her  native  Picardy,  her  later  books  with  the 
spirit  of  that  gay  Provence  which  is  the  land  of  her  adoption. 

We  in  England,  with  our  age-long  experience  of  local 
government,  are  only  too  well  aware  of  its  drawbacks. 
But  institutions  work  differently  in  different  countries. 
And  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  over-centralisation  "I' 
French  administration  does  aggravate  the  evils  «>l  bureau- 
cracy. Of  the  multiplicity  ^\'  petty  officials  Mme.  Adam 
constantly  complains  in  her  Souvenirs.     Would   they   be 

1  L'HeureVengeresse  des  Crimes  Bismarckiens.  2  Op.  ciL,  237. 

3  See  his  Etang  de  Bene  (1915),  passim. 


244  MADAME   ADAM 

reduced  if  another  of  her  favourite  schemes  were  carried 
out?  With  Rene  Bazin,1  with  her  dead  hero  Skobeleff,2 
and  other  conservative  reformers,  she  would  like  to  see 
parliamentary  government  replaced  by  an  assembly 
elected  separately  by  and  representing  the  various 
interests  of  the  different  classes,  professions  and  trades 
throughout  the  country. 

From  such  an  assembly  Mme.  Adam  would  not  exclude 
women.  All  her  life,  from  the  days  when  she  wrote  her 
first  book  3  to  champion  George  Sand  and  Daniel  Stern, 
she  has  been  an  ardent  feminist.  In  response  to  my 
inquiry  as  to  whether  she  has  in  any  way  modified  her 
feminist  principles,  she  writes — 

"  Callian  Var, 
"  28.xi.16. 

"  No,  I  am  no  less  feminist  than  in  the  beginning.  I 
have  merely  proved  as  editor  for  twenty  years  of  an 
important  review  .  .  .  that  a  woman  may  be  something 
besides  a  housekeeper  and  a  courtisan*  I  am  not  a 
suffragette,  because  I  am  an  anti-parliamentarian.  I 
desire  to  see  great  professional  councils,  of  which,  without 
any  alteration  in  the  law,  women  in  France  may  become 
members.  We  have  women  bankers,  women  farmers  and 
women  traders.  A  great  national  council,  composed  not 
of  the  favourites  of  the  licensed  victuallers,  but  of  men 
chosen  by  provincial  councils  and  of  exceptional  women, 
would  not  present  the  lamentable  spectacle  offered  by  the 
parliaments  of  to-day. 

"  After  the  war  we  shall  see  so  many  widows,  sonless 
mothers,  taking  the  places  of  those  who  are  dead.  Woman, 
alas  !  will  have  paid  dearly  for  the  place  to  which  she  has 
a  right,  the  place  which  she  occupied  in  the  great  school 
of  Alexandria  and  during  the  Renaissance." 

Among  the  numerous  organisations  with  which  Mme. 
Adam  has  associated  herself  since  the  war  is  that  excellent 
movement  La  Croisade  des  Femmes  Frangaises,  the  object 
of  which  is  to  deny  the  calumnies  circulated  by  Germans 
against  Frenchwomen,  and  intended  to  prove  that  the 
typical  woman  of  France  is  not,  as  Teutons  have  asserted, 
"  a  doll  without  morals,  without  heart,  without  courage, 

1  See  his  article  "  Crise  de  Metier,"  Echo  de  Paris,  17  Dec.  1916. 

2  Cambridge  Modern  History,  XII.  313. 

3  Idees  Anti-Prudhoniennes,  1858,  see  ante,  51-61. 

4  That  she  must  be  one  of  the  two  Proudhon  had  contended  in  La  Justice. 


~A  2 

>  9 

S5  w 

O  h 


u 


THE  ABBESS   OF  GIF  245 

a  creature  of  mere  coquetry,  an  instrument  of  perdition  " 
It  was  in  the  early  months  of  the  war  that    II  is  ,     s •    |, 
was  initiated.    Since  then  ..  has  been  rendered     .,,  ,    , ',  , 
by   the   heroism,    the    endurance,    (In-    marvdlo,       , 
ajnhty  of 'our  French  sisters,  which,  ehcitmgThe  aXiSn 

Mme    Adam  herself,  despite  her  eighty  years    enMfld 
valiantly  m  war  work,  toiling  unceasingrj  m  aid  oTthcS 
who  have  suffered   from  Teutonic  violenee.     One  of  the 
works  of  mercy  which  is  nearest  to  her  heart  is  .  he  v  ol  , 
tary  effort  she  has  initiated  for  the  provision  of  a  home 
and   sustenance  for  those  warriors  of   France   who 
suffered  permanent  disablement   in  the   defence  of       ,  ir 
country     lav  the  housing  of  these  beroes  Mme.     d Z\ 
friend,    leComte   de   Rohan   Chabot,    has    placvd    a       e 
disposal  his  beautiful  chateau  of  Vavey,  at  St.  Jean  le- 
Vieux  in  the  Department  of  Aisne.     The  fees  Mme  Adam 

siwfon       vCir  numerous  ^des  on  the  international 

situation,  which  are  now  appearing  throughout  Eurone 
she  consecrates  to  the  prosecution  of  this  good  u  ,  <  ' £ 
Which  She  1S  supported  by  the  generals,  whom  she  is  pr"  u, 
to  call  her  Fils  <T  Adoption  — Genera]  Nivelle  Ex-Com 
mander-in-Chief,  General  Lyautey,  ex-Minister  of  wZ 
General  Marchand  of  Fashoda  fame,  Admiral  Founder 
Commandant  Viaud  (Pierre  Loti),  and  many  ol  Imps 

Pages  would  not  suffice  to  describe  all  of  Mme     \«1  mi's 
war  activities.     One  might  note  in  passing  her  gratifica- 
tion when  certain  artillerymen  of  the  -1st    ArnTy   Corps 
serving  at  the  front  had  the  happy    idea  of  chrlstenmg 
with  her  name,  ''Juliette  Lamber,"  one  of  their  guns  on 
the  spot  where  the  first  Frenchman  was  killed  in  the  war 
Many  a  distinction  has  been  conferred   upon  her  in   her 
long  lite      She  has  been  godmother  to  a  newly  observed 
star,  a  Paris  street  has  been  called  by   her  name      But 
none  of  these  honours  has  pleased  her  like  this  homaire 
^  I     ,u°  lajrande  Francaise  by  a  feu   brave  gunneiii 
not   by  the  officers,  she  is  proud  to  remark,  but    by   fej 
servants,  les  poilus.  y 

Marvellous  as  are  her  activities,  especially  for  a  woman 
oi  her  years  it  is  even  more  by  her  spirit  than  by 
her  deeds  that  Juliette  Adam  deserves  well  of  her 
country.  For  forty-four  years  she  has  seen  tins  war 
coming— she    foresaw    even    the    route    of    the    invading 


246  MADAME   ADAM 

forces,  maintaining  always  that  they  would  march  through 
Belgium.  She  has  realised  how  German  aggressiveness 
"  was  placing  the  peace  of  Europe  at  the  mercy  of  an 
incident."  But  she  has  never  for  a  moment  doubted  that 
when  the  struggle  came  la  patrie  would  be  triumphant. 
With  Gambetta  she  has  always  believed  that,  however 
dark  might  be  la  patries  horizon,  the  spirit  of  France 
could  not  be  overcast  for  ever.  For  this  apostle  of  Videe 
frangaise  has  never  failed  to  read  aright  the  history  of  her 
noble  land,  to  behold  in  it  the  country  of  reawakenings 
and  resurrections. 

There  is  hardly  a  family  in  France  to  which  the  war 
has  not  brought  the  sorrow  of  bereavement.  Mme.  Adam's 
family  is  no  exception.  Lieutenant  Madier,  her  youngest 
granddaughter's  husband,  fell  in  the  Battle  of  the  Marne. 
He  alone  of  all  the  officers  of  his  battalion  remained  alive, 
when  he  was  seriously  wounded  in  the  knee.  Refusing  to 
allow  his  men  to  bear  him  to  a  place  of  safety,  he  en- 
deavoured to  rise.  "  I  am  the  only  one  left,"  he  cried. 
"Forward  !  "  Barely  had  he  uttered  the  word  when  a  shell 
shattered  the  dwelling-place  of  this  brave  spirit. 

Despite  the  unspeakable  sufferings  of  France,  despite 
her  personal  sorrows,  she  whom  Gambetta  used  to  call 
Madame  Integrate  has  ever  flouted  the  remotest  suggestion 
of  a  premature  peace.  When  some  of  the  women  of  the 
allied  countries  consented  to  go  to  the  Hague,  there  to 
confer  with  the  women  of  Germany,  Mme.  Adam  addressed 
to  them  in  the  columns  of  the  Figaro  a  stern  rebuke, 
explaining  at  the  same  time  how  impossible  it  was  for 
any  Frenchwoman  so  much  as  to  entertain  the  idea  of 
taking  part  in  such  a  conference.  The  heroic  endurance, 
the  unflinching  faith  of  this  stalwart  woman  animated  the 
victors  of  the  Marne,  the  defenders  of  Verdun.  Now  in 
this,  the  third  year  of  the  war,  she  is  convinced  that 
ultimate  triumph  cannot  long  be  delayed.  "  1917," 
exclaims  la  grande  Frangaise,  "  '71  reversed.  That  blessed 
date  rings  like  the  joy-bells  of  victory  in  my  old  veteran's 
ears." 


THE    END 


INDEX 


Abbaye-aux-Bois,  63 
Abdul-Hakk,  217 
About,  Edmond,  56,  167,  220 
Achates,  199 

Adam,  Edmond,  98,  99,  103,  104- 
119,  123,  127,  128,  130,  133- 
136,  141-143 
Prefect  of  Police,  145-152,  159, 
162-166,  172-179,  184,  192, 
197,  214,  216 
Death  of,   183,  199,  206,  207, 
213,  231 
Adam,     Juliette,     Anti-Parliamen- 
tarianism,  244 
Birth,  vi,  4 

British     statesmen,     opinions 
of— Bright,  227 
Chamberlain,  234 
Disraeli,  227 
Gladstone,  227,  233 
Rosebery,  Lord,  234 
Salisbury,  Lord,  227 
Builds     Villa     Bruyeres,     95. 

See  also  Bruyeres 
Daughter.       See      Lamessine, 

Alice 
Decentralisation,  advocate  of, 

243 
Feminism,  advocate  of,  244 
Foreign    Politics,    Views    of — 
Berlin  Congress.     See  Ber- 
lin 
Bulgaria,  233 
Cyprus,  227 
Egypt,  233-234 
Fashoda,  234 
Franco- British  Alliance,  226- 

227,  233-235 
Franco  -  Russian       Alliance, 

224-225,  228-231 
Germany.     See  Bismarck 
Hungary,  232 
Italy,  74-76,  227-228 

247 


Adam,    Juliette,    Foreign   Politics, 
Views  of  {continued) — 
Lettres  sur  la  Politique  Ex- 

terieure,  223,  228,  232 
Montenegro,  232  and  n. 
Roumania,  226,  232 
Slavophile,  229-232 
Triple  Alliance,  227-228 
Tunis,  227-228 
Friendships,    Literary,    122    et 

seq.,  213 
Gambetta's    Egeria,    173    and 

passim 
Grandchildren,  238-239,  246 
Marriage   with   M.   Lamessine. 
See  Lamessine 
Edmond    Adam,    106,    107, 
123,  127 
Norn  de  Plume,  93 
Nouvelle    Revue.      See    Revue, 

Nouvelle 
Paris,  first  visits,  42.     Resides 
in,  46.     Siege  of,  141,  143, 
144,  151 
Quarrels  with  Gambetta,   187, 

196  et  seq. 
Religious  opinions,  69,  121,  205, 

207 
Riviera,  first  visits,  94 
Salon,  after  the    war,  on   the 
Boulevard      Poissonnicre, 
171-173,     183-186,      194, 
207,  213,  230 
Grand  salon  on  the    Boule- 
vard   Poissonniere    before 
the  war,  97,  99,  108,  110- 
113,    116,    118,    119,    134, 
152,  161,  167,  208 
Introduction  to  salon  life,  <>."> 
L'Abbayo     dc      (!if     salmi. 

237-241 
La    Nouvelle    Revue    super- 
sedes, 215 


248 


INDEX 


Adam,  Juliette,  Salon  (continued) — 
Learns  the  salonniere's  art, 

97-98 
Salon  in  the  Police  Prefec- 
ture, 146,  152 
Salon  minuscule  in  the  Rue 
de  Rivoli,  97-101,  108 
Schooldays,  11  et  seq. 
Social  tact,  219 

Souvenirs,  vi,  vii,  1,  110,  116, 
120,   122,    125,    129,    149, 
160,   183,   188,   200,   213, 
214,  228,  241  and  n.  \  242, 
244 
Style,  literary,  58 
Suitors,  199 
War  work,  245 

Writings  :  Fiction,  68,  70,  92, 
93,  94,  96,  105,  118,  122, 
167,  186.  Christian  novel, 
210-211.      Hellenic,    209- 
210.     First   book,    51-61. 
First     newspaper    article, 
44-45.      Foreign     affairs. 
See  Foreign  Politics. 
Adam,  Villiers  de  l'Isle,  209 
Agadir,  190 
Agoult,  la  Comtesse  d'.     See  Stern, 

Daniel 
Aisne,  department  of,  245 
Aix,  192 

Albert,  Prince,  43 
Alfieri,  the  Marquis,  117 
Alpes   Maritimes,   les,   the   depart- 
ment of,  158 
Anderson,  Mrs.  Garrett,  58 
Andre,  the  Miles.,  22,  24,  25,  30,  43, 

61,  89 
Alexander  III,  Emperor  of  Russia, 

231 
Alexandria,  Bombardment  of,  233 

School  of,  244 
Alliance,  Triple,  227 
Anges,  Baie  des,  200 
Antoine,  Saint,  Faubourg  de,  138 
Apponyi,  Count,  233 
Arago,  Emmanuel,  140 
Arc,  Joan  of,  126,  208 
Aries,  192 
Armenia,  233 
Arnaud     de     l'Ariege,    Mme.     de, 

186 
Arpentigny,  Captain  d',  121 


Arthemise,  10,  11 
Artigues,  d',  111 
Aumale,  Due  d',  219 
Auvergne,  154 
Auxerre,  192 
Avron,  Plateau  of,  155 

Babel,  Tower  of,  232 

Balkan  Peninsula,  229 

Baltic  Provinces,  225 

Balzac,    Honore    de,   3,   8,   15,  40, 

64 
Bamberger,  Louis,  134,  135 
Barbereux,  Pauline,  44,  45 
Barot,  Odillon,  14,  21 
Barres,  Maurice,  v,  240,  243 
Bastille,  Place  de  la,  138 
Batbie,  174 
Baucel,  118-119 
Baudelaire,  209 
Baudin,  113 
Bazaine,  136 
Bazard,  89 
Bazin,  Ren6,  244 
Beaconsneld,  Lord.     See  Disraeli 
Beaune,  Rue  de,  84,  86 
Beauvais,  the  Archbishop  of,  2 
Beethoven,  95 
Belfort,  163 
Belleville,  118,  148 
Beranger,  46,  47 
Berlin  Congress,  223-225,  235 
Berlioz,  72,  73,  74 
Bernard,  Claude,  107 
Bernhardt,  Dr.,  4 

Mme.  Sarah,  154 
Berry,  128 
Bert,  Paul,  107,  179,  180,  199,  200, 

203,  205 
Besancon,  81 

Beuque,  Mile.  Aime,  84-86 
Billot,  General,  186 
Bismarck,  99,  133,  135,  136,  157n.5, 

158-168,  171,  177,  191,  193,  195, 

197-206,  211,  222,  223,  228,  230, 

231,  233,  235 
Bixio,  Alessandro,  76,  77,  104,  117 

Nino,  77,  117,  118,  132,  134 
Blanc,  Louis,   15,   19,  25,  26,  33, 

108,  148,  152,  164,  174,  237 
Blanche,  Dr.,  106 
Blanqui,  93,  148-149 
Blatier,  35 


INDEX 


249 


Blerancourt,  8,  10,  11,  12,  14,  15, 
20,  26,  27,  30,  33,  36,  39,  40,  41, 
82 
Blondeau,  38 
Bocca,  la,  Villa  of,  95 
Bonnard,  Dr.,  46,  47,  84,  94 
Bordeaux,    Gambetta's   speech   at, 
172 
National  Assembly   meets    at, 

158,  160,  162,  164 
Thiers   forms   government   at, 
171 
Bosnia,  229 
Boulogne,  Bois  de,  240 
-sur-mer,  2,  22,  43 
Bourbaki,  General,  170 
Bourges,  164 

Bourget,  le,  Fort,  145-148,  167 
Paul,  v,  69,  220,  221,  240 
Brebant,  Cafe,  106,  129,  152 
Bright,  John,  178,  227 
Brionne,  108,  109 
Brisbane,  Albert,  83,  184 
Brisson,  200 
Brook  Farm,  84 
Brougham,  Lord,  95 
Brussels,  93 

Bruyeres,    Gambetta    visits.      See 
Gambetta 
George  Sand  visits,  124,  126- 

128,  181,  206 
Sale  of,  236 

Villa  of,  95-96,  102-103,  106- 
107,  114,  116,  123,  154,  159, 
162,  165,  167,  169,  178,  182, 
199 
Bulow,  Hans  von,  73 
Bulgaria,  233 
Buloz,  76,  214 

Buonaparte,  After  Sedan,  137 
Deposition,  140 
Emperor    of    the   French,   50, 
66,     75-77,    91,     118,     119, 
134 
Louis   Napoleon,    23,    26,   33, 
34,  39,  66,  70,  76,  81,  104  ».5 
Burke,  Edmund,  178 
Buzenval,  Battle  of,  156,  157  n  * 

Cabarrus,  Dr.,  94 
Cafe  Anglais,  226 
Cahors,  109,  116,  180 
Calmette,  219 


Camille  Ambrosine  (Juliette  Adam's 

baptismal  names),  12 
Cannes,  94,  96,  159,  L69 
Camot,  Hippolyte,  ~,r>.  68,  104,  118 

Mine.  Hippolyte,  70 
Carrel,  Armand,  104,  184 
Cassandra,  49 
Castelar,  217 
Castor,  elephant  in  the  Jardin  des 

Plantes,  152 
Catherine,  Empress  of  Russia,  65 
Cavaignac,  General,  32 
Cavour,  Count,  77 
ChallemebLacour,  98,  111,  113,  179, 

180,  182,  216 
Champigny,  Battle  of,  1 5 1 
Champion,  Honore,  85 
Changarnier,  213 
Chanzy,  General,  163  and  n.1,  170, 

228 
Chapelle,  la  Sainte,  145 
Charlemagne,  86 
Charles  I,  King  of  England,  139 
Charles,  Professor,  10,  29,  30 
Charles  the  Bold,  3 
Charnace,  la  Comtesse  de,  73 
Charpentier,  71 
Chateaubriand,  63,  160,  210 
ChAtelet,  le,  119 
Chatrian,  72 
Chaudordy,  197 
Chauny,   5,   8,    11-16,   21,   23,   24, 

29-32,  38-40,  45,  54,  56,  61,  71, 

75,  78,  82,  89,  93-96 
Chavannes,  Puvis  de,  72 
Chenevard,  152 
(hivres,  14-16,  19,  22,  31,  39 
Chopin,  95 
Cialdini,     Italian     Ambassador    in 

Paris,  224 
Citeaux,  83 
Clavel,  Dr.,  100 
Clcnicnccau,  200 
Cobden,  Richard,  91,  92 
Coblentz,  159 
Colvin,  Sir  Sidnev,  vii,  173  and  n.'-\ 

186,  217 
(  (iinbes,  205 
Coinpiegno,  3,  4 

('unite,  Augustc,  46.  17.  <iS,  ti't,  87 
Concorde,  Place  de  la,  138,  163 
Conde-sur-YrsL'iv-;.  * '■> 
Considerant,  Victor,  83 


250 


INDEX 


Constant,  Benjamin,  89 

Coppee,  Francois,  209,  217 

Coquelin,  213 

Corday,  Charlotte,  71 

Corinne,  63 

Corniche  Road,  118,  133 

Corot,  239 

Corsica,  96 

Cousin,  Victor,  47,  94 

Creusot,  209 

Crevant,  130 

Crimean  War,  43,  196 

Crispi,  200 

Croissant,  Rue,  179 

Croissy,  Chateau  de,  63 

Cronstadt,  231 

Cyprus,  227 

Damascus,  211 
Danton,  110,  193 

Daudet,  Alphonse,  v,  71,  110,  111, 
189,  209,  211,  213,  216,  219, 
220 
Leon,   v,   vi,   38%.,    189,   211, 
219,  240,  243 
Deffand,  Mme.  du,  65,  102 
Delescluze,  113,  148 
Deroulede,  Paul,  189 
Detaille,  213 
Diderot,  65 
Disraeli,  227 
Donnersmarck,  Count  Henckel  de, 

198 
Dorian,  Family  of,  152 

Minister  of  Public  Works,  1870, 

140-151,  179 
Mme.,  150,  151,  238 
Charles,  151 

Mile.   Aline   (later   Mme.    Me- 
nard), 151 
Dreher,  beer-house,  119 
Dreyfus  Affair,  220 
Druses  the   77 
Duclerc,  100  and  n.\  101,  104,  111, 

198,  201 
Dudevant,  Aurore,    George    Sand's 
granddaughter,  123 
Maurice,    George    Sand's    son, 
126,  128-130,  135,  206 
Dufaure,  173,  174,  176,  186 
Dufey,  Mme.,  11,  22 
Dufour,  Aries,  90-93,  135,  162,  165, 
168,  191 


Dumas,  Alexandre,  54 

fils,  49,  72,  124 
Dupanloup,  Monseigneur,  176 
Dupont- White,  68,  78 
Duran,  Carolus,  213 
Duval,  Raoul,  184 

Edward  VII,  King,  196,  226 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  62 
Enfantin,  Barth61emy  Prosper,  88- 

90,  95 
Entente,  Triple,  227,  228 
Erckmann,  72 
Erckmann-Chatrian,  217 
Ethelbald,  King  of  Wessex,  3 
Eugenie,  Empress,  134,  139 

Faguet,  Emile,  99 
Faidherbe,  General,  170 
Fashoda,  234 
Fauvety,  Charles,  47-49,  53 

Mme.,  47-50,  52,  53,  64,  105 
Favre,   Jules,    140,    156,    157   and 

n.5,  161,  162,  164,  170 
Ferrieres,  161 
Ferry,   Jules,   111,  119,   200,    214, 

231 
Feuillant,  Xavier  de,  198 
Feuillantines,  Rue  de,  122 
Feuillet,  Octave,  56 
Flameng,  Leopold,  71 
Flammarion,  Camille,  217 
Flaubert,  Gustave,  9,  102,  117,  123, 

124,  125,  213,  214,  215 
Flavigny,  Comte  de,  62,  63 

Marie   de,  afterwards  la  Com- 
tesse    d'Agoult.     See  Stern, 
Daniel 
Florence,  117 

Flourens,  Gustave,  148,  149 
Fontainebleau,  164,  196 
Forbach,  137 
Fortou,  185 
Fourier,  Francois  Marie  Charles,  47, 

80-84 
Fournier,  Admiral,  245 
France,  Anatole,  65,  85,  126,  209, 

220,  221 
Francis  Joseph,  Emperor  of  Austria, 

75 
Frankfort,  city  of,  62 

Treaty  of,  177 
Freycinet,  de,  186,  219 


INDEX 


251 


Gabriel,  architect,  175 

Gallifet,   General,    167,    184,    217, 

219 
Gambetta,  Benedctta.    Later,  Mme. 
Leris,  180,  181 
Leon,  v,    7,    43,    108-110,   113- 
115,  118,  119,  120  139,    140, 
170-187,  237,  242,  246 
Anti-clericalism,  205 
Army  reform,  195 
Berlin  Congress,  223,  224 
Bruyere  visits,  180-182,  192 
Contemplated    interview    with 

Bismarck,  199  et  seq.,  207 
Death,  203 

Expresses    opinion    of    Mme. 
Adam's  friendships  and  anti- 
pathies, 212 
Goes     to     Geneva    with    the 

Adams,  197 
In  Mme.  Adam's    salon,   111— 

112,  167,  207 
Letters  to  Mme.   Adam,    182, 
192,    193,     194,     195,     197, 
225 
Minister  of  Interior  (1870),  140, 

156,  157,  171 
National  Assembly,  176 
Nouvelle  Revue,  disapproves  of, 

215,  218,  222 
Prince    of    Wales,    interviews 

with,  226 
Republique  Francaise,  founda- 
tion of,  179-180 
Revanche,  111  et  seq.,  223 
Russia,  attitude  towards,  225 
Speeches,   172,   176,   177,   178, 
182,  192 
the  younger,  180,  203 
Mme.,  109,  180 
Tata,  180,  203 
Garibaldi,  75,  77 
Garnier-Pages,  116,  140,  176 
Gautier,  Theophile,  64 
Gay,    Delphine.      See     Mme.     de 

Girardin 
Gay-Lussac,  Rue  de,  130 
Gebhart,  217 
Geneva,  87 
Genoa,  77,  117 
Georges,  St.,  Place,  139,  147 
Germain,  St.,  Faubourg  de,  64 
Gervais,  Admiral,  231 


Gif,  Abbess  of,  236  et  seq. 

Abbey  of,  14,  99,  181,  203,  208, 
234,  236,  237,  239  el  seq. 
Gioia,  217 

Girardin,  Emile  de,  56,  62,  64,  91, 
92,   104,  184,   198,  215,  216, 
222 
Mme.  de,  64,  125 
Gladstone,  Mr.,  vi,  222 

Mrs.,  222 
Godin,  84 

Goncourt,  Edmond  de,  71,  124,  136, 
148,  153,  212 
Jules  de,  124,  125 
Goncourts,  the,  101,  102,  124 
Gorce,  Pierre  de  la,  113 
Gortschakoff,  the  Russian  Chancel- 
lor, 197,  225 
Granville,  Lord,  161 

watering-place,  138,  141 
Grevy,  Jules,  56,  104,  108,  162 
Grosjean,  163 
Guise,  town  of,  83  n.1,  84 
Guizot,  18,  22 

Habsbourgs,  the,  228 

Hague,  the,  246 

Hanotaux,  Gabriel,  161,  162 

Haussman,  89,  152 

Havre,  le,  Gambetta's  speech  at,  178 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  80,  84 

Heine,  Heinrich,  62 

Helier,  St.,  144 

Heligoland,  235 

Henner,  213 

Heredia,  209 

Hericourt,  Jenny  d',  48,  49,  52,  53, 

70,  71 
Herzegovina,  229 
Hetzel,  56,  76,  92,  93,  110,  111,  116, 

135 
Hippocrates,  68 
Hobson,  J.  A.,  58 
Hohenlohe,  Prince  von,  196,  199 
Hohenzollern,  House  of,   134,   135, 
228 
Prince  Anthonv  of.  L34 
Homer,  8,  15,  32,  (3,  96,  210 
Honore,  St.,  Rue,  153 
Huegel,  55 
Hugo,    Victor,    v,  5-1.  54,  T-\   123, 

148,  171.  209,  213,  237,  238 
Hymette,  Mont,  209 


252 


INDEX 


Ignatieff,  Count,  231 
Ireland,  233 
Isambert,  180 

James,  Henry,  219 

Jaureguiberry,  Admiral,  185 

Jena,  Battle  of,  133 

Jeremiah,  99 

Jersey,  I.  of,  144 

Jerusalem,  Rue  de,  145,  152 

Jourdan,  152 

Juan,  Don,  63 

Juan,  Golfe,  95,  103,  106,  116,  123, 

127,  129,  236 
Judet,  240 
Judith,  Princess,  3 
Jumieges,  124 

Karr,  Alphonse,  44,  45 
Koechlin-Schwartz,  Mme.,  237 
Kossuth,  62,  66 
Krompholtz,  Mme.,  vi 
Kruger,  President,  234 

L ,  Mile.,  186,  203  and  n. 

Labouchere,  Henry,  148,  149  n.1, 
161 

Lafayette,  General,  111 

Lafitte,  Rue,  64 

Lalanne,  28  »2. 

Lamartine,  Alphonse  de,  64,  70,  98, 
101,  102 

Lamber,  Juliette.  See  Adam, 
Juliette 

Lambert,  Dr.  Jean  Louis,  Mme. 
Adam's  father,  v,  vi,  2,  4,  6-10, 
12-18,  20,  21,  23-26,  28,  32-42, 
46,  51,  54,  56,  57,  62,  66,  78,  79, 
82,  85,  93,  95,  96,  103,  105,  107, 

128,  167,  206 

Lambert,  Juliette.  See  Adam, 
Juliette 

Lambert,  Mme.  Olympe,  Mme. 
Adam's  mother,  2,  4,  5,  6,  8,  9, 
12,  35,  57,  95 

Lamessine,  Alice  (later  Mme.  Se- 
gond),  Mme.  Adam's  daughter, 
42,  45,  53,  71,  93,  95,  102,  103, 
106,  107,  109,  117,  123,  126,  128, 

129,  130,  138,  141,  144,  153,  162, 
165,  167,  237 

Lamessine,    Juliette.     See    Adam, 
Juliette 


Lamessine,  avocat.     Mme.    Adam's 

first  husband,  39,  40,  41,  50,  92, 

93,  102,  103,  123 
Laon,  137 
Lasteyrie,  Jules,  Marquis  de,  111, 

112,  176,  213 
Lazare,  Gare  St.,  174,  175 
Lebanon,  Mt.,  77 
Ledru-Rollin,  19,  20,  22,  33,  148 
Lemaitre,  Jules,  209,  210 
Lemerre,  209 
Leris,  Mme.     See  Gambetta,  Bene- 

detta 
Lespinasse,  Mile,  de,  102 
Lesseps,  Ferdinand  de,  91,  92,  216 
Levy,  Michel,  54,  55,  92,  93,  124 
Lille,  192 

Lisle,  Lecomte  de,  209,  217 
Liszt,  Franz,  63,  64,  66,  73,  121  to.3 
Littre,  56,  63,  66,  68,  69,  78,  176, 

210,  215 
Lombardy,  201 
Longchamps,  Review  at,  178 
Loti,  Pierre,  v,  220,  221,  239 
Louis  XIV,  175,  236,  243 

Philippe,  6,  13,   14,  23,  70,  88, 
111 
Louvois,  Place,  43 
Louvre,  Museum  of,  65,  106 
Palace  of,  46,  63 
Shop  of,  89 
Lyautey,  General,  245 
Lyons,  city  of,  84,  91,  192 
Lord,  161 

Mclaren,  Donald,  83  n.1 
MacMahon,  Marshal,  179,  182,  183, 

184,  185,  186,  193,  202 
Macon,  98 

Madier,  Lieutenant,  246 
Magnard,  219 

Magny,  restaurant,  115,  124 
Malabry,  Park  of,  220 
Malaquais,  Quai,  63,  85 
Manet,  101 
Marat,  205 
Marchand,  General,  245 

Paul,  217 
Marie  Antoinette,  63 
Marne,  Battle  of,  246 
Marrast,  Armand,  104 
Marseilles,  192 
Marx,  Karl,  168 


INDEX 


253 


Matthieu,  notaire,  103 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,  215 
Maure,  Dr.,  94,  95,  107,  117,  162 
Maurice,   George  Sand's  son.     See 

Dudevant 
Maurras,  Charles,  189,  243 
Maximin,  Emperor,  59 
Mazarin,  Cardinal,  193 
Mazas,  Prison,  145 
Mazzini,  66,  227 
Melissandre,  210 

Menard,  Louis,  67,  72,  73,  102,  209 
Menilmontant,  90 
Mentone,  127 
Mercadier,  M.  Elie,  vii 
Meredith,  George,  9,  59 
Merimee,  Prosper,  56,  94,  116,  117, 

135,  136,  139,  204 
Metz,  capitulation  of,  147,  198 

Treaty  of  Frankfort  cedes  to 
Germany,  163 
Meunier,  Stanislas,  217 
Meuse,  valley  of,  130 
Meyerbeer,  49,  50 
Michelet,  101 
Milan,  117,  118 
Mille,  Pierre,  9 
Millet,  72 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  58,  60,  68,  91 
Mistral,  243 
Mohl,  Mme.,  72 
Moliere,  11 
Moltke,  136 
Monaco,  127 
Montaigne,  109 
Montdidier,  170 
Montessori,  12 
Montijo,  Eugenie  de.     See  Eugenie, 

Empress 
Montmartre,  Cemetery  of,  113 

Rue,  137 
Montmorency,  217 
Montparnasse,  Gare,  141,  142 
Montretout,  Fort,  155 
Morley,  Lord,  88 
Morocco,  227 
Moscow,  156 
Motte,  148 
Mulhouse,  237 
Myers,  W.  H.,  120 

Napoleon  I,  v,  81,  215 

II.     See  Buonaparte,  Louis 


Napoleon,  Prince,  78 

Nelitzer,  75,  98-100,  119,  133,  134, 

154 
Nice,  96,  127,  180.    Edmond  Adam's 

candidature  at,  I.V.i   160 
Nivelle,  General,  245 
Nohant,     126,     143.      The    Adams 

visit  George  Sand  at,   132,   134, 

135,  206 

Odeon,  theatre,  125,  154 
Offenbach,  67,  72 

Ollivier,    Emile,   50,   66,    118,    119, 
132,  137,  102 
Mme.,  66  n.,  98 
Oncken,  Professor,  224 
Orsini,  50 

Palva,  house,  198 
La,  198 

Vicomte  de,  198 
Palmerston,  Lord,  76,  77,  92 
Panama,  Isthmus  of,  87 
Paris,  Gaston,  168,  209 
Parnassian   School  of   Poets,    102, 

209,  210 
Pascal,  236 

Pas-de-Loup,  circus,  146 
Paul,  St.,  211 
Pedro,  Don,  111 
Peguy,  Charles,  85 
Pelagie,  Ste.,  prison,  145 
Pelletan,  Eugene,  57,  93,  100,  110, 

111,  140,  152 
Pereires,  the,  89 
Peruzzi,  the,  74 
Petrograd,  228,  230 
Peyrat,  98-99,  100,  113,  117,  148, 

152,  179,  205 
Phalere,  209 
Picard,  Ernest,  140,  150,  157,  161, 

162 
Pichat,  Laurent,  110,  111,  174.  216 
Pierreclos,  la  Comtesse  de,  70,  78, 

95,  98,  101,  102,  105,  144 
Pierrefonds,  the  Adams  and  George 

Sand  visit,  131 
Pio-Nono,  Pope,  75 
Planet,  126,  128 
Plato,  107 
Plevna,  •Jl,,.» 
Pliny,  OS 
"  Plocrmel,  Pardon  de,"  opera,  50 


254 


INDEX 


Poissonniere,    Boulevard,    99,    106, 

108,  118,  145,  152,  153,  167,  179 
Pollux,  elephant,  152 
Porte-Saint-Martin,  theatre,  130 
Port  Royal  des  Champs,  236 
Presbourg,        Rue,        64.        Mme. 

d'Agoult's   salon  in,  62,  64,  68, 

75,  76,  77,  78,  102 
Prim,  General,  134 
Procope,  Cafe,  109 
Proudhon,    Pierre   Joseph,    15,    17, 

19,  20,  47,  50,  51-61,  71 
Prudhomme,  Sully,  209 

Rabelais,  109,  181 

Rachel,  48 

Racine,  Jean,  32,  236 

Mile.  Marie,  239 
Raincourt,  Anastasie,  14 

Constance,  14,  19 

Pelagie.     See  Seron,  Mme. 

Sophie,  14,  15,  20 
Rambouillet,  la  Marquise  de,  60 
Rampolla,  Cardinal,  208 
Ranc,  179,  200,  226 
Ratazzi,  Mme.,  215 
Recamier,  Mme.,  4,  63,  68 
Reclus,  Elie,  217 
Reims,  de,  111,  198 
Reinach,  Joseph,  115  n.,  217 

Theodore,  217 
Renan,  Ernest,  54,  62,  66,  72,  78, 

79,  135,  168 
Renouvier,  Charles,  47,  48,  53 
Reservoirs,  Hotel  des,  175 
Revue,  La  Nouvelle,  v,  vi,  vii,  99, 
189,    191,  212  et  seq.,  223,  236, 
241,    242.     Foundation    of    sug- 
gested by  George  Sand,  214 
Reybaud,  Mme.  Charles,  86,  91 
Reynaud,  Jean,  95 

Mme.,  95 
Richelieu,  Cardinal,  193 
Ripley,  George,  84 
Rivoli,  Rue  de,  46,  96,  98,  99,  101, 

102,  106,  107,  108,  118 
Robespierre,  205 

Robinson,  Mary  (Mme.  Duclaux),  3 
Rochefort,  Henri  de,  Marquis,  119, 
140,  146,  152,  159,  160,  241 

Bibi,  159,  160,  162,  163,  164 
Rodrigues,  89 
Roger,  actor,  131 


Roger,  Mme.,  131 

Rohan-Chabot,  Comte  de,  245 

Romagna,  76 

Romainville,  Fort,  148 

Rome,  224 

Ronchaud,  Louis  de,  64,  65,  66,  68, 

69,  72,  75,  98,  102,  105,  111,  208, 

216 
Rouen,  124 
Roumania,  226 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  16,  207 
Royer,  Mme.,  70,  71 

Said  Pasha,  92 

Saint  Jean-le-Vieux,  245 

Saint-Just,  205 

Saint -Simon,  Claude  Henri,  Comte 

de,  80,  86-88 
Saint-Victor,  Paul  de,  67,  100,  102, 

135,  208,  216 
Sainte-Beuve,  54,  124,  209 
Sainte  Pelagie,  prison  of,  93 
Sallandrouze,    la    Maison    de,    106 

and  n.1  ,  171,  179,  186,  217 
Salomon,  Adam,  71,  72 
Sand,  George,  v,  8,  15,  52,  54,  55, 

56,  57,  62,  80,  86,  92,  191,  214, 

237,  244.     Friendship  with  Mme. 

Adam,  120-132.    Letters  to  Mme. 

Adam,  62,  121,  128,  131,  141,  143, 

168,  169,  238.     Visits  Bruyeres. 

See  Bruyeres.     Death,  206 
Sappho,  120 
Sarcey,  217 
Scheurer-Kestner,  179 
Schneider,  140 
Schncebele  Incident,  223 
Scholl,  Aurelien,  55  and  n.1 
Sechan,  Pare  de,  217 
Sedan,  Battle  of,  137,  190 
Segond,    Mme.     See    Lamessine, 
Alice 
Dr.  Paul,  237 
Seine  et  Oise,  236 
Senlis,  3 

Seron,  Dr.,  1,  2,  3,  5,  6,  8,  9,  11,  12, 
13,  23,  33,  34,  40,  42 
Mme.,  1,  2,  5,  6-14,  16,  17,  20, 
21,  23,  26,  27,  30-32,  36-42, 
120 
Olympe.     See  Lambert,  Mme. 
Sevigne,    Gambetta    "  makes   his," 
182 


INDEX 


255 


Sevigne,  Mile,  de,  239 

Simon,  Jules,  119,  140,  176 

Sismondi,  14 

Skobeleff,  228  et  seq.,  244 

Soissons,  14,  42,  44,  46 

Sophocles,  210 

Sorbonne,  Rue  de  la,  85 

Spuller,    172,    179,    180,    198,    199, 

200,  205,  207,  211,  216 
Stael,  Mme.  de,  65,  87,  90,  125,  187, 

210 
Stanislas,  college,  65 
Stem,  Daniel,  52,  54-57,  62-64,  94 
102,  105-106,  112,  120-125,' 
209,  244 
Salon,  65-70,  73,  74,  75,  76-77, 
80,  98,   104,   162,   184,  208, 
210 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  2 
Stock,  Baron.     See  Ratazzi,  Mme. 
Strasbourg,  203 
Sue,  Eugene,  64 
Suez  Canal,  89,  90,  91 
Suresne,  240 
Sussex,  the,  213 
Syria,  77 

Taine,  Hippolyte,  48,  214,  216,  243 
Taitbout,  Rue,  90 
Talleyrand,  193 
Tangier,  190 
Tardieu,  Andre,  197 
Taride,  56 
Texier,  Edmond,  98 
Texiers,  the,  106 
Thelema,  Abbey  of,  127 
Theuriet,  Andre,  217 
Thierry,  Augustin,  87,  217 
Thiers,  v,  75,  95,  107,  108,  111,  114, 
117,  134,  146,  147,  161,  162.  164- 
167,  171,  174,  176,  177,  183,  184, 
198.    President  of  the  Republic, 
160,      172.      Resignation,      173. 
Death,  199,  207 
Thomas,  Emile,  126 
Tiburce,  211 
Tinayre,  Marcelle,  220 
Toulon,  94,  127,  231 
Tourguenieff,  214,  217,  228 
Toussenel,  Alphonse,  85,  86,  98,  99, 

100,  136 
Transvaal  War,  234 


Trelat,  28 

Trochu,  General,  140,  145,  146  147 
156,  157  ».*  ' 

Troubetzkoi,  Princess  Lise,  197 
Tuileries,  106,  166 
Tunis,  French  occupation  of,  227, 

JtZo 

Turin,  76,  117 
Turr,  217 

Uzes,  la  Duchesse  d',  241 

Var,  department  of,  124 

Varzin,  199,  227 

Vavey,  Chateau  de,  245 

Vendome  Column,  166 

Venetia,  201 

Venice,  178 

Venizelos,  235 

Verberie,  2,  3,  4 

Verdun,  246 

Versailles,  Peace  of,  162,  164,  174 
National  Assembly  at,  164-166. 
174-176 

Viardot,  Mme.,  72 

Viaud,    Commandant.     See    Pierre 

Loti 
Victor  Emmanuel,  King,  77,   133 

200,  201 
Victoria,  Queen,  43 
Vigny,  Alfred  de,  63 
Villafranca,  Peace  of,  75,  76 
Villars,  193 
Vinoy,  157  and  n.4 
Voisin,  185 
Voltaire,  Cafe,  109 

Wagner,  Richard,  72-74,  104 

Wales,  Prince  of.     See  Edward  VII 

Washington,  City  of,  86 

Wells,  H.  G.,  191 

Whiteing,  Richard,  172 

William  I,  King  of  Prussia,  later 

Emperor  of  Germany,   135, 

136 
II,  Emperor  of  Germany,  223, 

234 
Wissembourg,  Battle  of,  137 
Woerth,  Battle  of,  137 

Zola,  Emile,  102,  220 


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